


Loose Ends

by ScottWashburn



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScottWashburn/pseuds/ScottWashburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles is tasked with tidying up an old job. Note: two characters from my "Tales from the Academy" Fic, Anny Payne and Alby Vorsworth, play prominent roles in this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Ends

**Loose Ends**

 

A Fan Fiction Novel set in the Worlds of Miles Vorkosigan

 

By Scott Washburn

  

 

Author’s Note: This story uses characters introduced in my fan fiction novels: “Tales from the Academy” and “Lieutenants”. If you have not read those stories, I suggest you do so before reading “Loose Ends”. 

 

 

This story includes characters and settings created by Lois McMaster Bujold and are used without her permission or knowledge.

 

**Prologue**

 

Count Miles Vorkosigan brushed a tiny spec of dust off his brown-and-silver house uniform as he walked through the doors of the Imperial Residence. Servants bowed respectfully, but the ImpSec guards were all business as they scanned him. Despite his frequent visits to the Residence, he had to pass through security just like everyone else. He recognized the guard doing the scanning and there was no way the man didn’t recognize Miles’ unique appearance, but he made no indication of such.

 

A liveried servant led him down a long polished corridor leading to the Emperor’s private office. Miles’ hand brushed absently across the chest of his tunic, but encountered nothing except a tasteful selection of his many medals. The heavy Imperial Auditor’s seal was not there anymore and he still missed it even though over a year had gone by since he was forced to give it up. The death of his father and his inheritance of the countship of Vorkosigan District had created a very clear conflict of interest with him being an auditor. His fellow counts, even his political allies among the Progressives, simply couldn’t swallow the idea of him wearing one hat as a member of the politically dynamic Council of Counts, while having that other hat, the one that gave him the nearly unlimited power as an Emperor’s Voice, in his back pocket. They’d tolerated it—barely—while he was just standing in for his father, but now that it was permanent they wouldn’t stand it any longer. His protests that he could keep the two jobs separate had rung hollow even in his own ears and in the end he’d been forced to yield his auditorship. It still hurt a little. Here he was, only forty-one and on his third career. He hadn’t given up the first two voluntarily, and he supposed he wouldn’t give up this one voluntarily, either. Still, being count was a job he’d known he’d end up with from a very early age. He just wished it hadn’t come this soon. Being an auditor, hell, being Admiral Naismith, had just been so much _fun_.

 

Not that his auditor days were completely behind him. The Emperor still made use of his talents and experience in handling difficult problems, but now he usually had to do it _through channels_ and he hated that. Asking for help from the other auditors, dealing with ImpSec… _Like being a bloody lieutenant for Simon Illyan again!_ For special jobs Gregor would make him the temporary Ninth Auditor like he had that first time when Simon was struck down. But that was rare.

“Hi Uncle Miles!” A young voice suddenly shouted from close behind him and made him jump. He stopped and turned and there was the seven-year-old Crown Prince. Damn it, the boy had grown again in the few days since he last saw him. He was only half a head shorter than Miles now. “Will Aral and Helen be coming over today?” demanded the boy. “I’ve got a new toy to show them!”

 

“Uh, I think their mother has an outing planned for this morning, but they ought to be over this afternoon.” The Prince frowned at the prospect of having to wait three _whole_ hours until his favorite playmates arrived, but just then his puffing tutor caught up with the boy and hauled him back to his lessons. Miles smiled and continued on his way.

 

Emperor Gregor was in his usual spot: at his desk, nearly surrounded by comconsole screens, but he stood up as soon as Miles entered his office. “Morning Gregor,” said Miles.

 

“Good morning, Miles. Thanks for coming so quickly.”

 

“We live to serve, Sire. So what’s up?”

 

“A rather… unusual situation has arisen, one that requires your unique talents. Tell me: could you go off-planet for a while?”

 

Miles’ eyebrows shot up. Now this sounded interesting. He hadn’t been off-planet in a long time, since his father died. “Uh, sure. For how long?”

 

“Well that’s the thing. Depending on how it turns out, you could be gone for quite a while. Three months, six months, a year perhaps.”

 

“A year? I’m not quite as… unattached as I used to be, Gregor. What’s this all about?” In spite of the idea of being away from wife and family for a year, he was intrigued. Whatever this was, it had to be pretty important.

 

“I’ve agreed not to divulge any details until you agree to go.” He held up a hand as Miles started to protest. “Yes, I know that’s not fair, but this could have some extremely important consequences for the Empire—good ones—if it works out. I wouldn’t even ask if it wasn’t important. Could Ekaterin handle the District for you while you are away?”

 

“Yes,” answered Miles without hesitation. “You know all the work she’s doing there already. She’s been my right hand ever since the Fire. She knows the job and she could handle it. But what…”

 

“So you’ll go?”

 

Miles frowned. A year away from home? From his wife and his children? A dozen years earlier he’d have jumped at the chance for an intriguing and important mission, but now, now it wasn’t nearly so easy. He swallowed. “If you think it’s that important, Gregor, yes, I’ll go. On one condition.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“ _You_ have to explain to Ekaterin!”

 

Gregor snorted. “Maybe _I_ should go and leave you here in _my_ place, Miles. But you know I can’t tell her any details.”

 

“No, but you can make it clear that this isn’t some mid-life crisis joyride that _I_ cooked up!”

 

“That, at least, I can do. Okay, there’s someone waiting to see you. Come on.” He led him through the rear door and down a short passageway to a small sitting room. There was a man waiting in a chair who quickly got to his feet. Miles stared at him without immediate recognition. He was wearing expensive, but fairly ordinary civilian clothes. He did look familiar, but who was he?

 

“Good morning, your Highness,” he said to Gregor. “I assume he’s agreed?” He turned to Miles. “Count Vorkosigan, it is good to meet again."

 

Suddenly Miles recognized him. It was the lack of the blood red Imperial Guard uniform and the elaborate face paint that had thrown him off.

 

“Dag!” he exclaimed. “What brings you here?”

 

 

* * *

 

Two hours later Miles and Gregor were alone again in his office. “So what do you think?” demanded Gregor.

 

“Well, it’s a hell of a surprise. I must admit that I’d thought about this a few times after it all happened. There were certainly a pile of loose ends, but I just assumed that the Cetas would take care of them themselves and I’d never hear about it.”

 

“General Allegre informs me that their security organizations have been devoting huge resources to this issue for years. The fact that they’ve come to us—to you—for help shows just how desperate they must be to wrap this up.”

 

“Yeah, well they would be. As long as they don’t, there is still the threat that it could happen again. But tell me: what do _we_ get out of this by helping them?”

 

“What? A third Order of Merit isn’t enough for you?” Gregor smiled.

 

“I never actually got the second one,” countered Miles. “But seriously?”

 

“Seriously? Well, calm inside the Cetagandan Empire for one thing. That’s worth quite a lot in and of itself.”

 

“True.”

 

“Plus, their good will and gratitude.”

 

Miles snorted. “That and two marks will buy you a cup of coffee.”

 

“Don’t discount it,” replied Gregor. “We built up some credit with them with your prior good deeds and some more after that mess on Novo Paveo, and we’ve actually gotten some tangible rewards out of it. This could be more of the same. Maybe even bigger, if things go well. I can’t say any more than that right now. But as to the mission, what are you going to need?”

 

Miles sighed. “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m not as young as I used to be. I’m going to need some help and some backup.” He paused and looked at his emperor closely. “Can I have the Dendarii?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Really? Just like that?”

 

“Yes. I was assuming you’d want them. Allegre has already apprised Admiral Quinn that he has a job for them.”

 

“Huh,” said Miles, a bit surprised—and a trifle annoyed. The fact that ImpSec had already done this indicated just how sure Gregor had been that Miles would go. But he hadn’t had any real contact with his old command in years. Nor with Elli Quinn, except for brief messages. Seeing her again was going to be… strange.

 

“However,” continued Gregor. “Allegre wants Barrayaran forces at your disposal as well. He’s concerned that Quinn’s… attachment to Barrayar is growing pretty thin.”

 

Miles opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again. Yeah, Elli Quinn’s _attachment_ to Barrayar had been pretty much her attachment to Miles himself. With him and the Jesseks long gone from the Dendarii, he supposed it was inevitable that Quinn would start thinking of Barrayar as just another client. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “I know ImpSec will want some of its own people along, but I don’t want one of their Trouble Squads. As good as those guys are, they’re just too damn hard to work with. They think they’ve got the answer to every problem and it almost always involves really large guns.”

 

“Allegre wants you to have some real muscle handy,” said Gregor dubiously. “No warships, naturally, but at least some troops. You might end up a hell of a long way from home, Miles.”

 

“Well then find me some regular troops and get them security clearances. I want people who will take orders from _me_.”

 

“Well, who did you…?” Gregor suddenly stopped and a gleam came to his eye. “I think I know _exactly_ who.”

 

In a bit of impromptu telepathy suddenly Miles did, too. “Yeah… yeah… _perfect_!”

 

* * *

 

Captain Andreanne Payne strode down the ranks of C Company, 1st Battalion, 61st Regiment Imperial Infantry with a frown on her face. There were still so many people she didn’t know very well. Rebuilding the company—rebuilding the whole regiment—after the nightmare on Novo Paveo was taking far longer than she ever expected. She supposed she should be grateful that they hadn’t just dumped a mass of raw recruits on them, but finding replacements with assault training had taken far longer. With the Regiment reduced to the size of a weak battalion, there just weren’t 2,000 qualified men to be found.

 

And now, almost a year after returning home, they still weren’t at full strength. Another few months she’d been told. Of course the silver lining was that the time allowed those men who had survived but with serious wounds to return to the Regiment as they healed. So only a bit more than half her company were new men.

 

They were shaping up pretty well, she supposed. Most were happy to be part of a famous regiment and the veterans were tolerating the newbies as well as could be expected. But she found herself missing those who weren’t here. Smart-ass Kerbeck, solid Dahlberg, even fumble-fingered Griesmeyer, all gone to the White Battalion…

 

She refused to let herself become maudlin and concentrated on inspecting her company. But she was less than halfway through when her wristcom pinged. “Payne here,” she said into the device.

 

“Captain, this is headquarters. Report to the Colonel at once.”

 

Anny’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “On my way. First Sergeant Nikolaidis, take over.”

 

“Yes sir,” said her top NCO. She left him to complete the inspection and walked briskly to the regimental HQ building, wondering what the Colonel could want.

 

The Colonel. Colonel Lurray.

 

 _That_ was perhaps the biggest change. The change hardest to get used to. When they’d returned to Barrayar, the highest ranking officer left was just a captain. The high command had not felt that they could promote a captain all the way to colonel in one jump, so there was no way to promote someone from within the Regiment to take command. So a stranger had taken command of the 61st. Lurray was a good officer, and Anny had worked with him during her senior year at the Academy, but he wasn’t one of them. Not yet, anyway.

 

Anny was ushered right into Lurray’s office. She came to attention in front of his desk and saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir.” Lurray was frowning. Not a good sign.

 

“As ease. How’s your company, Payne?”

 

“In good shape, sir.”

 

“Glad to hear it. Have them start packing.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“You’re shipping out. In five days.”

 

“Just my company?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Uh, where are we going, sir?”

 

“I haven’t got a clue. I’m only the commander of this regiment and apparently I don’t need to know where one of my companies is going.” The annoyance in his voice was as plain as the annoyance on his face.

 

“Do you know how long we’ll be gone?”

 

“No, they didn’t see fit to tell me that, either. So get yourselves ready. That’s all.”

 

“Yes sir.” She saluted and left the office, confused, apprehensive, and a little excited. She called Nikolaidis on her wristcom. “You still have all the men together, Sergeant?”

 

“I was just about to dismiss them, sir.”

 

“Well, keep them together until I get there. I’ve got some news for them.”

 

 

 

 

**Chapter 1**

 

“I should have done this years ago,” said Miles as he got up from the exercise mat.

 

“Yes, you should have,” agreed Ekaterin, giving him that look. “I believe I’ve mentioned that a time or two.”

 

“Or three, or eight,” said Miles wiping the sweat off his face with a towel. “And you were right, as always. It’s just that it seems like I’ve spent my whole life enduring one medical procedure after another. Necessary ones. So when faced with ones that aren’t absolutely necessary I’ve tended to…”

 

“Avoid them.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“But you really do look a lot better, Miles. Do you feel as good as you look?”

 

“Oh definitely. The treatments have me feeling like I’m ten years younger. Well, make that twenty; I didn’t feel this good when I was thirty.” He pointed to the exercise equipment in Vorkosigan House’s small gym. “Couldn’t have done any of this before.” He wriggled his shoulders and shook his arms. He _did_ feel like he was twenty-five again. The anti-aging treatments he’d taken in preparation for this mission had worked better than he’d ever expected. He could walk without limping and he had more energy than he’d had in a long time.

 

“And the treatments are safe?”

 

“According to Lily Durona and Mark, they are completely safe. Lily is using them herself, and maybe Mark, too, from his hints. They plan to make them available to the public very shortly.” He cocked an eye at her. “You thinking of trying them?”

 

“Perhaps while you are away. Surprise you when you get back.”

 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I didn’t ask for this, but when the Emperor commands…”

 

“So you’ve said. And so Gregor has said.”

 

“We live to serve, Love.”

 

“Yes.”

 

He went and took her hands. “Are you going to be all right? I know I’m leaving you an awful burden. The children, the district…”

 

“And the Council of Counts. Are you really sure about that Miles?” Ekaterin’s face was creased with worry.

 

“Gregor okayed it and I can’t think of anyone I trust more.”

 

“But a woman sitting on the Council, even just as a proxy. The other counts are not going to be happy.”

 

“Oh, one or two will be…”

 

“Count Dono doesn’t count.”

 

“Well, he does, but I don’t think he’s the only one. They’ll grumble, but they’ll put up with it. Just don’t take any shit from them and it will be all right. And I think Gregor really wants this to work out…”

 

“Why?”

 

“Well, I get the impression that he’s hoping if they accept the idea of a countess sitting in as a proxy for a count then they might accept an empress sitting in as a proxy for an emperor.”

 

Ekaterin’s face lit up. “ _Really_? Now wouldn’t _that_ be something?”

 

“Yup, sure would. I think that Laisa wants a more active role—and Gregor could surely use the help.”

 

His wife sighed and smiled. “Bit by bit we are making progress, aren’t we? Leaving the Time of Isolation behind.”

 

“Yes, one step at a time. One woman at a time. My mother, Dono, Laisa, now you.”

 

“Don’t forget Anny. She’s done a lot.”

 

“Oh yes! There are hundreds of girls applying to the Academy now, a lot of them from Komarr. I remember how hard the reactionaries tried to stop her, but there’s no stopping any of them now.”

 

“I’m wondering how to stop Helen. She hasn’t given up on the idea of going to the Academy. Granted, that’s still ten years away.”

 

“I don’t know that we should try to stop her,” said Miles. “I mean there are no wars on the horizon and peacetime soldiering usually isn’t all that dangerous. And it can really help form a person’s character. And Anny is one hell of a role model for anyone.”

 

“I’m so glad she’ll be with you on this mission. I hope the separation won’t mess up things between her and Jer.”

 

“Well, they knew there would be long separations when they went out with the trade fleets. They might not see each other for six months at a time even under normal circumstances.”

 

“Six months is a long time.” She looked at him fondly. “A year’s even longer.”

 

“I’m going to expend every effort to make sure this doesn’t go beyond six months, my love. If I don’t have a red-hot lead by then, I’ll make some excuse to come back home at least for a while.”

 

“Good. Will you be able to send messages? The children are going to miss you terribly. And so am I.”

 

“That will depend on where this mission leads me. I’ll send messages whenever I can, but I have a feeling we will be outside the reach of normal message services for much of the time. Sorry.”

 

She sighed. “Gregor owes us big time for this.”

 

“He knows that.”

 

“I just wish I could see the need. Neither of you will tell me what it’s all about, but you did say it’s a Cetagandan matter; why can’t they take care of it?”

 

“They’ve tried. And they are very worried that they’ve failed. Worried Cetagandans are… well, something to be worried about. We’ve made a lot of progress in bettering relations with them in the last ten years. This could help a lot more.” He stopped for a moment and then went on: “Everyone was shocked by the losses we took on Novo Paveo, but let’s be honest: that was just a skirmish. A real war with the Cetagandans would be a million times worse. No one thinks something like that could happen anymore, but that’s just wishful thinking. We’ve come to the brink twice in my lifetime—well, three times, maybe—and I’ve no wish to see a fourth. So let’s do this and make sure Helen can go to the Academy in peace if she wants to.”

 

Ekaterin stared down at him for a long time, her expression slowly growing less somber. “I love you,” she said and bent over to kiss him.

 

“Ah, I’m all sweaty,” protested Miles halfheartedly.

 

“There’s a remedy for that, Love,” she said. “Now come along.”

 

* * *

 

“Alby! What in the world are you doing here?” Anny Payne stared in astonishment as her old friend came through the door. He smiled when he saw her, but then he threw up his hands and shook his head.

 

“Damned if I know! What are _you_ doing here?”

 

“Waiting for orders. Been waiting for orders for almost three weeks. You just get here?”

 

“Yup, by fast courier, no less. My stomach is still back on Komarr, I think.” He grabbed a chair and plunked down in it and looked around the tiny room she was using as her office. “What a dump. You’ve been here three weeks?”

 

“Yes. They told us we were going out on a special escort mission somewhere in the nexus. We just assumed it was going to be for an ambassador or something like that, but the next thing we know, they’ve landed us on Sergyar with orders to sit tight until further notice. Sit tight!” she snorted. “We’re on the most isolated post on the entire planet. It’s a 500 klick march to the nearest settlement! Where do they think we could go?” She shook her head. “How’d they manage to kidnap you?”

 

Alby shrugged. “I was ordered to attend a seminar on computer security in Vorbarr Sultana. Nothing unusual about that, but I was met at the monorail station by two ImpSec goons who hustled me to the shuttleport and the next thing I know I’m here.”

 

“Wow, I’m thinking this isn’t some ordinary assignment. I wish somebody would tell us what’s going on!”

 

“We might not have too long to wait. There was an ImpSec colonel on the fast courier who landed with me and I saw him head off to the base HQ. He didn’t say a word to me the whole trip, but he kept eyeing me like some prize calf.”

 

“Did you see Jer before you left?” she asked. “We’re completely incommunicado here.”

 

“I just told him where I was going—where I _thought_ I was going!—when I saw him in the mess hall. Figured I’d be back in a couple of days so I didn’t say good-bye to anyone.” He paused and smiled. “I know he’s really missing you, Anny.”

 

“And I miss him. And there’s not anything to do here except miss him. I’m having a hell of a time keeping the men busy.”

 

“Well, you can always have ‘em suit up and run simulations with the neural interfaces in your armor, can’t you?”

 

“No!” cried Anny in frustration. “When they landed us here, all our equipment stayed on the ship! We’ve got nothing but our personal gear.”

 

“Now that’s… strange,” said Alby frowning. Before either of them could say any more, there was a rapid knock on the door which then opened. One of her men was standing there. He looked excited.

 

“Captain? They’re assembling everyone in the mess hall! They want us all there on the double!”

 

“At last!” said Anny.

 

“Damn right!” agreed Alby. “I’ve been waiting here, what? Fifteen minutes?”

 

They quickly left the office and followed the crowd toward the mess hall. The base where they’d been parked was nearly abandoned and there were only a few caretakers commanded by officers who must have seriously pissed somebody off to get stuck out here. So there was virtually no one else around. C Company piled into the building, all of them just as eager as Anny to have something happen. The men came to attention as she entered, but she put them at ease and told them to find seats. They’d barely done so when the ImpSec colonel Alby had mentioned entered and they all had to come to attention again.

 

He strode up to the front of the room, a stern look on his face. He got up on to one of the tables so everyone could see him. “At ease,” he commanded. He looked them over for a few seconds and then said: “Well, as I’m sure you’ve all guessed by now, you are not on some ordinary escort mission. But I am not here to enlighten you. If everything goes well, you will _never_ know what it was all about.” This produced a low murmur among her men, that was not quite loud enough to produce a rebuke from Sergeant Nikolaidis. But no explanations? _Great, just great._

 

“What I _am_ here to do,” continued the colonel, “is to make sure that in the event that you do become enlightened, you will never breathe a word about it to any living soul. I’m going to require an oath from all of you of absolute secrecy. No horseshit, people! If you take this oath and then blab, you _will_ end up in serious trouble! _Serious_ trouble. So, anyone who doesn’t think they can do that, step outside and we’ll ship you back to Barrayar. Right now.” He paused and glared at them. The sinister ‘Eyes-of-Horus’ pins on his collar seemed to be glaring, too. There was some nervous shuffling, but no one moved. Anny wasn’t sure what the hell to do. She strongly suspected that even if anyone did want to leave they wouldn’t do so without her permission. But she was hardly going to tell them to bug out if they wanted! So she held her tongue and glared back at the ImpSec colonel.

 

“All right,” he said. “Repeat after me.” He made them repeat a rather long and wordy oath that she wasn’t entirely sure she understood, herself. They swore to it and they were all committed. But to what?

 

The colonel seemed satisfied, however, and spoke inaudibly into his wrist com. “Get your gear together,” he then commanded. “Shuttles will be landing to pick you up in twenty minutes. Dismissed.” He hopped down from the table and walked out the doors. Immediately a loud babble of voices erupted from the men.

 

“Attention!” roared Nikolaidis and silence returned immediately. The First Sergeant looked to Anny.

 

“You heard the colonel,” she said loudly. “Break camp! Get ready to move out!”

 

Her troopers boiled out of the mess hall and ran to the barracks where they’d been quartered. Anny headed for her own room. Alby tagged along. “Good thing I didn’t unpack.” They reached her quarters and she wasn’t the least surprised to find her dog-robber, Lance Corporal Bjorlin, already at work packing up her kit.

 

“I can finish this up, Corporal,” she said. “You get your own stuff together.”

 

“Of course, sir, just give me a second to do this.” Naturally, in spite of her instructions, Bjorlin finished packing for her before he left. Alby grinned at her.

 

“You never did get another dog-robber after old Quinton retired, did you?” asked Anny.

 

“No, I borrowed other officers’ and me and Rad Benin sort of had one on Novo Paveo, but he rotated around the HQ, so he wasn’t really mine.”

 

“Well, Bjorlin could certainly work for you, too—assuming you’re coming with us.” Anny took a step back and stared at her friend. “Alby, what the hell are you doing here?”

 

“You already asked me that, and I told you: I don’t know.”

 

“This is _really_ weird. A super-secret mission, with ImpSec and a top intelligence analyst thrown in.”

 

“I’m hardly a top analyst!” protested Alby.

 

“Commodore Galeni thinks you are. And so do I. Did I ever thank you for saving my ass back on Novo Paveo when I was being held prisoner?”

 

“Oh, a time or two, I think.”

 

“They didn’t include you in this… thing because you are a good marksman, Alby! Somebody must think your skills are going to be needed.”

 

“Well, they must have had reasons, I guess. Just like they had reasons for wanting Barrayar’s most highly decorated assault company commander, eh?” He winked at her.

 

Just then, they heard the shriek of approaching shuttles. Or approaching somethings; they didn’t sound quite right… They grabbed up their kits and went outside. Nearly everyone was already assembled, with a few laggards scrambling into place. But they were all looking skyward. Three assault shuttles were on final approach, but…

 

“Those aren’t Barrayaran,” said Alby.

 

Nor were they. They were of a make and model Anny could not identify and they were painted a light gray instead of the traditional forest green of Barrayaran shuttles. _What is going on?_ They touched down in a cleared area amidst the barracks, despite there being no landing pads there. As the cloud of dust kicked up by their thrusters dispersed, the loading ramps swung open and she could see crewmen, also wearing gray uniforms, beckoning them to board. The ImpSec colonel waved them on, but no one moved until she bellowed:

 

“C Company! Board ship!”

 

The men scrambled aboard, stowed their gear in racks, and strapped themselves into the seats that were in rows along the length of the compartments. She and Alby—and the colonel—watched until everyone else was aboard. Then Alby went up the ramp followed by herself, with the colonel last, as protocol demanded. “Your men are well-trained, Captain,” said the colonel, as they strapped themselves in.

 

“Yes they are. Thank you, sir.” _And they’re mine! Remember that!_

Within seconds the ramps were retracted and the hatches closed and the shuttles leaped into the air. _Not wasting any time. This is like a combat drop in reverse!_ The craft vibrated strongly for a few minutes as they sliced through the lower atmosphere and then the vibrations died away until there was no feeling of motion at all, just the muted roar of the thrusters, which eventually cut off as well. A voice came over the intercom announcing a rendezvous in fifteen minutes.

 

“A rendezvous with what?” asked Alby. He looked at the colonel, but the man ignored him.

 

“I guess we’ll find out in fifteen minutes,” said Anny. “Unless they blindfold us and lock us in a storage compartment for the whole voyage.”

 

“Damn peculiar, all this.”

 

“Yes.” _Ha, we can ignore you, too, ImpSec guy!_

 

There were no windows in the shuttle so they only knew they were closing on their destination when the vehicle used its attitude thrusters to prepare to dock. A few moments later the shuttle lurched slightly and then was still. They had arrived.

 

 

* * *

 

Alby followed Anny down the ramp into the shuttle bay of the ship. Just what ship they were on remained a mystery. Barrayaran ships all had an imperial crest with the ship’s name painted on the forward bulkhead of their shuttle bays, but this one did not. He looked at the side of the shuttle and saw there was a registration code. It started with an _R_ so he’d bet the ship’s name started with that letter, too. _That really narrows it down, doesn’t it?_

 

The troops assembled and then several of the gray-clad crewmen guided them out of the bay and down a corridor. They passed other crewmen and Alby suddenly realized where he’d seen those uniforms before. “Anny,” he whispered. “Dendarii Free Mercenaries.”

 

Anny sucked in her breath. “You sure?”

 

“Yup. Or at the least they buy their uniforms from the same place as Admiral Quinn.”

 

“Huh. What the _hell_ is going on?”

 

They reached some berthing compartments and Anny spent a few minutes getting her troopers settled. The quarters were significantly more comfortable than those on a Barrayaran transport. Alby supposed that was to be expected: mercenaries rarely had a permanent base to return to; they might have to live aboard ships for long periods. He was given a small, but adequate compartment of his own, right next to Anny’s. Her dog-robber had already decided that he was his charge, too, although he hadn’t seen Anny say anything to him, and he was helping him unpack.

 

Before long the ImpSec colonel, who had disappeared as soon as they’d arrived, returned and ordered he and Anny to follow him. He led them along corridors and up stairs. This was clearly a pretty large ship, at least cruiser-sized. Alby finally spotted some writing with the word _Raptor_ on one bulkhead, so he guessed that was the ship’s name. Yeah, there had been a _Raptor_ among the Dendarii ships at Novo Paveo.

 

They reached an area that was clearly officers’ country and the colonel stopped at a hatch and pressed the buzzer next to it. The hatch immediately slid open and they went through. “Here they are, My Lord,” said the colonel.

 

Sitting behind a desk was a small, but familiar figure.

 

“Count Vorkosigan!” exclaimed Anny.

 

Vorkosigan grinned and got up from his chair, came around the desk and shook both their hands. “Anny, Alby, good to see you again,” he said. Then he looked to the ImpSec officer. “Thank you, Colonel, that will be all.”

 

The man frowned ferociously. “My Lord, I’d like to stay for this briefing.”

 

“I know you would,” replied Vorkosigan, the expression on his face amused, but unmovable. “But that _will_ be all, Colonel, thank you.” The man drew himself up and glared, but then he spun on his heel and left.

 

“Who _is_ that guy?” breathed Alby.

 

“Colonel Vorfannon? Oh, he’s our ImpSec watchdog. There are a few less obvious ones on board, too. Not sure if I’ve spotted all of them yet, so watch yourselves.”

 

“My Lord?” said Anny. “I don’t understand. Aren’t we all on the same side?”

 

“Of course. Or at least we are all on Barrayar’s side. ImpSec sometimes forgets just who they work for. No harm in reminding them from time to time. But come in! Sit down! Sit down!” He gestured to some comfortable chairs around a low table. As they found seats, another hatch slid open and Armsman Roic entered carrying a tray with coffee and a few snacks. He smiled at them. “Captain Payne, Lieutenant Vorsworth, good to see you again.” They returned his greeting and helped themselves to some really good coffee. Roic waited a moment and then withdrew.

 

“Well!” said Vorkosigan, seating himself and also taking coffee, “I imagine you both want to know what the hell you’re doing here?”

 

“Yes, My Lord,” they replied in unison.

 

Vorkosigan’s gaze slid over to Alby. “Lieutenant Vorsworth, I have been trying—with no success—to get Anny to call me by my first name. How about you? Will you call me _Miles_ —in private?”

 

“Uh… I will if she will, My Lord.”

 

“I won’t, My Lord,” said Anny firmly. “Sir.”

 

Vorkosigan sighed. “Ah well. It was worth a try. But to business! Why you are here. At its most simple, I’m on a rather bizarre treasure hunt and you are here to help me. I don’t suppose that our good Colonel Vorfannon told you anything at all?”

 

“No, sir.”

 

“Typical, although I can’t really blame him in this case. Now I could follow his example and not tell you anything, either, but I won’t. You can’t help me if you don’t know anything. Or at least you can’t help me as much as you could if you did know what we are up to. So. A story.” Alby found that his attention was riveted to the small count.

 

“Seven years ago—about six months before I met, you, Anny, now that I think about it—Ekaterin and I were taking an extended honeymoon cruise out through the nexus when I was suddenly ordered—in my Imperial Auditor’s role—to straighten out a mess on Graf Station between one of our trade fleets and the local authorities. It seemed fairly straightforward at first, but the deeper I dug, the more complicated it became. By the time I reached the bottom, we were very nearly in a shooting war with the Cetagandans.”

 

Alby stiffened. “Really, sir? I… I don’t recall hearing anything about that—of course I would have been about thirteen at the time, I guess.”

 

“No, the crisis arose and dissipated so quickly we were able to keep things fairly quiet. Frankly, the whole thing was so damn embarrassing for both sides that we made a real effort to downplay it all. One advantage of not having a free press. But it could have gotten _very_ ugly.”

 

“What happened, sir?” asked Anny.

 

Vorkosigan blew out his breath, took a sip of his coffee, and leaned back. “How much do you know about the Cetagandan leadership?”

 

“I saw a _haut_ woman once,” said Alby.

 

“Pretty amazing, huh?” grinned Vorkosigan.

 

“Yes sir.” She’d been the most stunningly beautiful woman Alby had ever seen.

 

“Well, the genetically engineered _haut_ rule their empire, while the somewhat-less genetically engineered _ghem_ actually run it. But within the _haut_ there is an inner circle made up of the Imperial family itself and what is known as the Star Crèche. The Star Crèche is made up entirely of women and they are the ones in charge of the _haut_ genome. They decide what’s worth keeping, what ought to be discarded, and what changes can be made to ‘improve’ things. It gives them enormous power.

 

“Now a few years before the Graf Station incident, well, more than a few, I was probably younger than you two, a freshly minted lieutenant at the time, there was a… plot within the Star Crèche hatched by one of the empresses before she died. It’s all hellishly complicated and I only barely understand it all myself. But apparently there is a faction within the _haut_ and the Star Crèche that feels—felt—that the system they had was leading to stagnation within the _haut_ line. They wanted to open up the control of the genome, apparently to stimulate what they saw as progress. The conspirators attempted to steal the data on the genome and give it to each of the governors of the Cetagandan satrapies. I got… involved in things then and fortunately the plot was foiled. If it had succeeded, it could have led to civil war and that almost certainly would have eventually involved Barrayar.” Vorkosigan drank some more coffee and popped one of the snacks into his mouth and chewed for a moment.

 

“A number of Cetagandan heads rolled,” he continued after swallowing. “We thought that was the end of it. But… it wasn’t. The mess on Graf Station was a continuation of it. Not all the conspirators had been rooted out and they still had hopes to carry out a variation of the plan. Not by giving the genome data to the governors, but by starting a whole new line of the _haut,_ somewhere outside the Cetagandan Empire.” Vorkosigan frowned. “One thing that’s not widely known is that the Star Crèche not only controls the _haut_ genome, it actually controls all reproduction. I mean this literally. They run all the uterine replicators that produce _haut_ babies. Every _haut_ that is born comes directly from the Star Crèche.”

 

“Really, sir?” said Anny. “That’s… terrifying.”

 

“Yes, isn’t it now? Periodically the Star Crèche sends out a thousand uterine replicators with the infants to their new parents throughout the empire. These Child Ships are terribly important for obvious reasons. And then one disappeared.”

 

“Disappeared?” said Alby.

 

“Well, actually, it was destroyed after the replicators had been transferred to another ship. The conspirator attempted to make it look like an accident, with a back-up plan to suggest the ship had been destroyed by us—hence the almost war. But the conspirator—just a single person, a genderless servant called a _ba_ —fled with its kidnapped babies, apparently with plans to set up a new colony somewhere beyond the reach of the Cetagandans. Through a series of mistakes and plain bad luck, its plan came a cropper on Graf Station. We recovered the babies and turned them over to the Cetagandans in the nick of time.” Vorkosigan shivered even though the cabin was quite warm.

 

“That’s incredible,” said Anny. “But how does that concern us now?”

 

“Ah, well, just like with the first incident when I was a lieutenant, we thought that the matter was closed and the Cetagandans would mop up things at their end. They tried, they tried very hard, but in spite of their efforts, there is one very large loose end that still needs to be tied up. Can you see what that is?” He looked at both of them

 

Alby refrained from raising his hand, but said: “Where was the conspirator, this _ba_ , going?”

 

“Got it in one!” said Vorkosigan. “Yes, where was it going with a thousand soon to be born infants? It seems unlikely that it was going to feed and change the diapers of a thousand newborns all by itself, doesn’t it? So it had to be heading somewhere. Somewhere where it had help waiting. But it had to be secret and safe and far from prying eyes. And it had to already be there; it had no time to create something from scratch on the fly. That means more conspirators and resources ready and waiting. The Cetagandans desperately want to find the place, because there’s no reason to think it isn’t still there ready for another hijacked load of kids. As long as it remains unfound, it will be a danger to them.”

 

“And we’re supposed to find it?” asked Alby, simultaneously intrigued and appalled.

 

“ _I_ am supposed to find it,” said Vorkosigan, grinning. “ _You_ are supposed to help me find it.”

 

 

 

**Chapter 2**

 

 

”Our first stop will be Graf Station,” said Miles. “I know the portmaster there and while it’s unlikely that it’ll have any new information for us, we have to pass through there anyway, so we may as well stop and talk with it.” The other people in the room all nodded. Anny Payne, Alby Vorsworth, Colonel Vorfannon and Captain Rasmussen, skipper of the _Raptor_. They, plus Armsman Roic were the only ones aboard who knew the whole story and were, _de facto_ , Miles’ staff.

 

The two younger Barrayarans looked slightly startled. “’It?’” inquired Alby.

 

“It’s a Betan hermaphrodite,” explained Miles. “I’ve known it for a long time, and it was rather too closely involved with the affair there.” That seemed to satisfy Anny and Alby. Vorfannon was already fully briefed on Bel Thorne. He glanced at Rasmussen, but the man was a blank. One thing Miles _didn’t_ know was how much the mercenary knew about Bel’s background: a former Dendarii, itself, who had continued working part time for ImpSec for quite a while afterwards.

 

He didn’t know Rasmussen at all and that bothered him. It still seemed incredible that nearly ten years had passed since he’d been forced to give up command of the Dendarii. There had been a lot of changes during that time. Elli Quinn was still in charge, but the distance between him and her had widened year by year. She hadn’t even bothered to meet with him prior to the mission and that hurt a little. Sure, she had reasons to be angry with him, but after all they’d gone through together, you’d think that…

 

“And after that, where next?” asked Rasmussen. “There are three other wormholes leaving Graf Station. To Quintelle, Athos, and Xerxes.”

 

“We’ll take the jump to Xerxes, we knew that much even back then from the route of the trade convoy. And as I’ve mentioned, the Cetas have done some of our work for us. From there they tracked its planned route to Mardonius and Walcheren. After that… things get less certain.”

 

“The _ba_ must have known there could be pursuers, My Lord,” said Alby Vorsworth. “Wouldn’t it have made every effort to hide his trail?”

 

“Yes, and it did. Except for a few mishaps, it might have gotten cleanly away. If war had broken out between Cetaganda and Barrayar as it’d hoped, it might well have been years before anyone even thought to start looking for it—if ever. Then when it failed to kill Guppy…” He paused and looked at Alby and Anny. “That’s right, you’ve both met Mr. Gupta, haven’t you? On Novo Paveo. I don’t imagine he had the time to tell you about how he first met me and ended up with the Dendarii, did he?”

 

“No, sir,” said the pair in unison.

 

“I’ll tell you the whole story later—although it’s in the briefing packet I gave you…”

 

“My Lord!” exclaimed Colonel Vorfannon. “You didn’t give them the whole thing, did you?”

 

“Yes, I did, Colonel. We are a team here and I don’t believe in withholding vital information from the people who will be advising me.” Vorfannon gave an exasperated sigh.

 

“My Lord, they’re just… _junior officers!_ They don’t have the clearance for this sort of thing!”

 

“Colonel, I’ll remind you that the Emperor re-appointed me a temporary ninth auditor for this mission. That won’t carry any water out in the nexus, but with Barrayarans, it damn well better. I can give clearance for anything to anyone I please. Right now it pleases me to take Captain Payne and Lieutenant Vorsworth into my confidence. I’ve worked with both of them before in some very difficult circumstances and I trust them absolutely. Clear?”

 

“Yes, My Lord.” The expression on the man’s face told exactly what he thought of it, but he made no further protests.

 

“Now where was I? Oh yes, Guppy. He was aboard the ship the _ba_ shifted the replicators to from the Child Ship. Once it’d shifted them again, it managed to murder the whole crew of the previous ship, except Guppy, who, because of his unique genome, managed to survive the bio-weapon. That was its critical slip-up because Guppy tracked it to Graf Station where they crossed paths with me. If not for that, it might have been the perfect crime. But apparently the _ba_ and its confederates were taking no chances and placed additional misdirections along the trail that have stymied the Cetagandans.”

 

“And you believe you can succeed where they failed?” asked Rasmussen. “I know your reputation, but clearly the Cetagandans must have expended a lot of resources and still failed.”

 

“True. But I’ve observed a certain… rigidity in their thought processes, Captain. We may spot things they have missed. Plus, due to the distances and politics involved, the Cetas have not been able to employ the massive forces they might have wanted to. Their efforts have been mostly small special forces units operating secretly. Also, they have been deathly afraid that if they reveal what they are up to, the _ba’s_ confederates will get the word and flee to somewhere even harder to find. That has limited their options. In any case, we will see what we can do.” _And you get paid whether we succeed or not._ He shifted in his chair and stretched.

 

“Now, as to security,” he continued. “The cover story, for your crew, Captain Rasmussen, and your troops, Captain Payne, is that we are searching for a kidnapped person of considerable importance. That’s all any of them need to know. That, and that they need to keep their mouths shut anywhere we go so as not to endanger the captive by letting the kidnappers know we’re searching for them. We are just a mercenary ship transiting their space on our way to a new contract. And it would be best to not advertise the fact that we are Barrayarans. Everyone will be provided with Dendarii uniforms which will be worn for the duration of the voyage. Captain Payne, there is battle armor aboard for your troops. I think you’ll find it comparable to the Mark.XI suits you’ve trained on, but there are some differences. Fortunately, you’ll have plenty of time to adjust to them.”

 

“Yes, sir,” said Payne.

 

“I’m hoping there will be no need for your troops, Captain. Let me be clear: our job is to find this hypothetical base. Once we’ve found it, we get word back to the Cetagandans and we are done. We are not expected to take any other action. Military power, both ground and naval, is for self-protection and leverage only. Understood?”

 

“Yes, sir,” said all the Barrayarans. Rasmussen just nodded.

 

“In the unlikely event that additional military force _is_ required, two more Dendarii ships will be following on our trail, a system or two behind us, that we can call upon if necessary.”

 

“As for me, I am traveling incognito as Mister… uh… Bothari. Anny, some of your troops might recognize me, but just tell them I’m observing the situation and to keep their mouths shut about it. They all know Vorfannon here is an ImpSec colonel so there’s no use trying to conceal that fact. Captain Rasmussen, I don’t know if any of your crew will know about me or not, but if questions start arising, go ahead and start a rumor that I really am Admiral Naismith, out of retirement for one special mission. That should so grab their attention that they won’t spare much thought about what the mission is, okay?”

 

“If you say so. But I think most of them are from after your time—just as I am.”

 

“Right,” said Miles, frowning. The Dendarii had forgotten him? Was that possible?

 

“Uh, sir?” It was Alby.

 

“Yes?”

 

“What’s my role here?”

 

“You’re an analyst, Lieutenant, so your job is to analyze! Go through the files I gave you until you know them by heart and then as we acquire more data, add that to the mix and see what you can come up with. We’ll have periodic brainstorming sessions and see what happens. Okay?’

 

“Yes, sir, okay.”

 

“All right, I think that’s enough for now. We’ll be making the first jump towards Escobar shortly, I believe, correct, Captain?”

 

“Yes,” said Rasmussen. “I need to get up to the bridge.”

 

“Very good. The rest of us have to shed our Barrayaran skins. Let’s get to it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Anny looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. It wasn’t that there was anything _wrong_ with the Dendarii uniforms, it was that they were just… dull. Light gray with some darker gray piping here and there, a rank badge on the collar, a Dendarii patch on the left shoulder and that was about it. The mercenaries didn’t seem to wear medals and she supposed that made a certain amount of sense. Even her undress greens were a lot snazzier. Still, the uniform was comfortable and well-made. She could put up with it for a while.

 

She left her cabin and only a few steps took her to where her men were assembling for inspection. Her platoon commanders, Lieutenant Vorgard, Ensign Milroy and the new man, Lieutenant Vorkins, were already there. Eric Vorgard grinned at her. “Looking good, Captain.”

 

“As are you, gentlemen. How are your men reacting to their new kits?”

 

“A bit of grumbling,” said Milroy. “But you’d expect that.”

 

“I’d be more worried if there wasn’t any,” added Vorgard.

 

“Yes,” said Anny, nodding. “Well, looks like they are ready; join your platoons, gentlemen.” Her officers did as she’d said and she stood out in front of the assembly and put them at parade rest. “Morning everyone,”

 

_“Good morning, sir!”_

“You are all looking splendid in your new duds,” she said, getting a laugh. “But I want to remind you that this is more than just some sort of costume party. As you’ve been told, we are in pursuit of some very dangerous individuals and they are expecting that the Empire will be on their trail. It will make our job much simpler if we can pass ourselves off as anyone other than Barrayarans. So, we have the new uniforms and if you’ll check your computer pads after this formation, you’ll see that we have new identities as well. You will also be issued Dendarii identity cards. We might—and let me emphasize _might_ —get some shore leave along the way. It’s important that you don’t blow your covers while having fun. So we have been provided with phony personal histories. They aren’t changing our names, just providing stories about where we were born and grew up and how we ended up as mercenaries. I want you to memorize your own stories as soon as possible. Use them with each other so they become second nature. After a few weeks we will start quizzing you on this. So get it right! Lives could depend on it. Any questions?”

 

“Sir? How long is this going to take?” The question came from a man in 2nd platoon, but she was sure every man here was wondering the same thing. Just like she was.

 

“Until we complete our mission, Private. I don’t know any more than that. Anything else?”

 

“What about the crew of this ship, sir? The real mercenaries? Can we talk to them?”

 

“They know just about exactly the same as we do. So yes, you can talk to them, but don’t expect to get anything out of them… oh, and that reminds me.” She paused and frowned, not exactly sure how to phrase this next bit. “As I’m sure you’ve probably noticed, quite a number of the Dendarii are women.” Some of the men started grinning. “Don’t get any false impressions about them! They are trained, professional, experienced combat personnel! This ship saw action at Novo Paveo, just like a lot of us did. Get out of line with them and they may well hand you your head. I expect you to treat them like you did the vivandiers—with respect! Trouble will _not_ be tolerated! And I’ll remind you that we have several people aboard with full power to hold field courts martial and dispense summary justice. It would really sadden me to have any of you lunks stuffed out an airlock. Am I clear?”

 

_“Yes, sir!”_

 

“Good. Now, as you know, they didn’t send our armor along with us—yes, I don’t like it either—but they do have suits they are going to loan us. I’ve been told they are nearly as good as our own suits. We shall soon see! So, for the next few days we will be working with the Dendarii armorers to get fitted and then we will be doing some serious drilling until we can use them as well as our own suits. So, there’s an officer waiting for us in the armory to give us an overview and then we will start getting fitted. Let’s move out.”

 

The briefing that followed wasn’t terribly informative in Anny’s opinion, although it sounded like the Dendarii suits were pretty capable. After that it was a matter of adjusting the suits to fit the individual troopers. The process took her back to her apprentice cruise during her senior year. She’d been put to work assisting the company ordnance sergeant to do exactly the same job. It was a time-consuming procedure and would take several days to do the whole company. She and her officers had their suits done first and then the NCOs so they could start familiarizing themselves with the armor to stay one step ahead of the men. While she was waiting for her suit, she noticed a very small set of armor hanging on one of the racks. It was the same style as the other Dendarii suits and even painted the same color, but it was clearly a custom model made for a very short person. With a shock she realized it must be Count Vorkosigan’s suit. _He used to serve with the Dendarii—he must have kept his armor!_ She wondered if he actually planned to use it?

 

Once she had her armor up and running she started getting familiar with it. It did have a neural interface like her own set, but the interface seemed to work a bit differently to what she was used to. Still she was confident she could get used to it. At least the suit had the proper plumbing connections! She spent a few hours practicing with the basic functions and then started exploring the more sophisticated features with the sensors and tactical displays. Again there were some differences, but she caught on quickly. The local tactical display allowed her to access the other suits in the company, but when she tried to tie into the ship’s tactical network she found she was locked out. Access denied. Huh, she’d have to get that sorted out. Being able to get information from the ship’s sensors was a big advantage; it had been vital during the action on Dounby.

 

The days passed and the ship moved through Escobar, Jackson’s Whole and on toward Graf Station. Anny was interested to see just how armed mercenary vessels were allowed to use the heavily defended wormholes of those systems. There were interstellar treaties and agreements and protocols that allowed it to happen. Fees had to be paid, but there were no on-board inspections. She had to think it would be a worrying thing to the locals to have foreign warships coming so close, but somehow it seemed to work. Barrayar was lucky in some ways to be at a dead end on the nexus: anyone coming there had to have legitimate business. No transients allowed.

 

There were periodic meetings with Count Vorkosigan, with and without Colonel Vorfannon and Captain Rasmussen, but as they had not gotten any new information to discuss, there really wasn’t much to talk about. He had Alby and her join him for dinner a few times and that was fun. The Count had a lot of stories to tell, many of them involving the Dendarii. The breadth of his experience was truly amazing and when they got into discussions about tactics, the dinners could last half the night. He had fought ground actions and space actions, landings under fire, evacuations under fire, and a lot more. He had some interesting comments about her own combats and she found herself learning a lot. “You should teach a course at the Academy, sir,” she told him. “You’ve got more real experience than any of the instructors.” He just laughed at the suggestion. “You can make the same claim, Anny” he replied.

 

She kept the men busy with training exercises, getting them used to their new armor. The neural interface allowed completely realistic combat simulations without the suits ever leaving the armory. But she also had the men do some real exercises on the ship. Or at least on as much of the ship as was open to them. The Dendarii restricted their movements as well as locking them out of the tactical net. She’d mentioned that to Vorkosigan and he’d promised to look into it. During one of their exercises, she’d been surprised when Vorkosigan joined them in his own armor. “Been a long time since I’ve worn one of these,” he said. “Let’s see how much I remember.”

 

He remembered pretty well, it seemed to Anny. He managed to keep up with her and follow what was going on. He also noticed the lack of access to the tactical net. “I talked to Rasmussen about it, and he keeps making excuses. Still, I suppose if the situation was reversed I’d be reluctant to allow a bunch of strangers access to _my_ tactical net. Maybe we can work something out to get limited access to sensors and such.”

 

“That would be good, sir.”

 

As they were getting out of their suits, Anny got up the nerve to say: “Your health seems to have improved recently, sir. You’re moving around like one of the lads.”

 

Vorkosigan smiled. “Yeah, I had some medical treatments before we left home. That’s one of the reasons you got stuck on Sergyar for three weeks: I was still finishing up the treatments. Sorry about that. But it was something I needed to do and had been putting off. Reminds me: how’s that arm of yours? All good?”

 

“Oh, yes, sir,” replied Anny, automatically moving her left arm around to demonstrate. “Can’t tell it’s not the one I was born with.” She’d had her left arm blown off on Novo Paveo and had a prosthetic for a few months, but the new arm had been grown and attached half a year ago and what she’d said to Vorkosigan was true: except for a few faint scars she couldn’t tell anything had ever happened.

 

“Glad to hear it. I had some major regeneration done a while back, myself, but I honestly don’t remember much about it. It must… it must have been quite a shock when it happened to you, though.”

 

Anny nodded. “I guess it was, sir. But I’d been so certain I was going to get killed, that at the time only losing an arm was sort of a relief rather than a shock. And of course, my armor blocked out the pain and kept me going.”

 

Vorkosigan nodded grimly. “Our machines keep us alive, keep us going, so we can be patched up and sent out again. Again and again until…”

 

“Our luck runs out?”

 

“I hope not. Well, no one’s luck is going to run out on this mission.”

 

“We can hope, sir.” Vorkosigan snorted and headed back to his cabin.

 

Anny went back to her own small cabin and found Bjorlin there putting some of her laundry away. “Oh, sorry, sir,” he said. “Can see you’re wanting a shower. I’ll get out of your way.”

 

“Stay a moment,” she said, holding out a restraining hand.

 

“Sir?”

 

“You’re using the central laundry facility on the ship, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes, sir. It’s nicely equipped, too.”

 

“Do you bump into any of the ship’s stewards there?”

 

“Oh, yes, sir, all the time.”

 

“Do you talk with them?”

 

“Some of them. A few seem pretty stuck up, but most will talk a bit.”

 

“What do you talk about?”

 

Bjorlin seemed surprised at the question. “Oh, just the usual things, sir. Passing the time of day, really. Nothin’ important.”

 

“Can you tell what they think of us?”

 

Bjorlin frowned. “Hard to say, sir. The ones who will talk are friendly enough. But I get the idea that they’re… kinda surprised at us.”

 

“Surprised? How so?”

 

“Well, none of ‘em have come right out and said it, mind you, but I think they were expecting us to be a bunch of savages, if you know what I mean.”

 

“What? Carrying around axes as big as we are? Drinking our wine out of the skulls of our enemies?”

 

“Yeah! Exactly, sir! Kind of amusing, actually.”

 

“Huh.” Anny frowned. It was true, Barrayarans _did_ have that sort of reputation in some circles. And sadly, some of the reputation was deserved. When Barrayar had burst back onto the galactic scene following the Time of Isolation and the Cetagandan Occupation, they had done so as conquerors. And not terribly enlightened or sympathetic conquerors either. Some of the policies back then had been downright brutal. Anny liked to think they had grown up a bit since then, but the old stories endured.

 

Bjorlin suddenly became serious, too. “Something one of them said did set me back a bit, though, sir.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“He said that all the women on board have been issued stunners—just in case. Don’t know if it’s really true.”

 

“Really? Why wasn’t I issued one?” Anny smiled, but she was actually a bit shocked.

 

Bjorlin snorted. “You don’t need one, sir! I’ve seen you in close combat exercises!” But then he sobered. “And anyone who even thought about bothering you, sir, would be looking for a long walk through a short airlock!”

 

“Yes, well, you might let it be known to the Dendarii you meet that any of us bothering one of them is looking for the same thing. I already told our people that, but the word might not have reached our hosts.”

 

“Yes, sir, will do. Well, I’ll let you get that shower.” Her dog-robber let himself out.

 

While she was showering, she thought about the fact that except for that one awful incident on Komarr, she’d never faced sexual assault. It was one of the things that Countess Vorkosigan—Countess _Cordelia_ Vorkosigan—had warned her about, one of the things Drou Koudelka had trained her to defend against, and something she had worried about from time to time, but the threat had only materialized that once. Well, she supposed the threat had been there on Dounby, too… But the most obvious sources of the threat, the other cadets at the Academy and the officers and men she served with later, they had become her defenders rather than attackers. She wondered how things were done among the Dendarii, or the other militaries in the nexus that had been co-ed for centuries? She’d met a few other women soldiers during the expedition to Novo Paveo, but the subject had never come up. Was it something they even had to worry about? There were some women Dendarii officers on the ship, maybe she could have a little chat with one of them.

 

* * *

 

Alby closed the briefing file and rubbed his eyes. He had done as Count Vorkosigan had directed: read the whole damn thing. It hadn’t been as long as he’d feared, but it was still a lot of material and there was certainly nothing in it that inspired any ideas of where to find the _ba’s_ secret base. There _was_ one thing that did jump out at him, though. The information on the Cetagandans’ attempts to track things down seemed far too brief. There ought to have been a lot more in Alby’s opinion. So either they were holding information back—or Vorkosigan was. He’d have to ask the Count about that at the next meeting.

 

So, they were heading for Graf Station and after a stop there, they’d be heading out into one of the more remote sections of the nexus. He wasn’t sure exactly how they were going to conduct the search. Just stop at planets and ask: _Hey, seen any suspicious characters with lots of diapers and baby bottles passing through?_ He’d leave that part of Vorkosigan. The man seemed to be able to talk people into just about anything. He suspected that if he was to have any part in information gathering, it would be to hack into local information networks. _That_ he could do! From what he’d seen of the computer security on the less developed worlds, he didn’t expect much trouble. Finding anything useful would be another matter, of course. Probably a lot more drudgery than challenge.

 

He flopped on his bunk and closed his eyes. So far this trip had been pretty boring. Still no word if there would be any shore leave on Graf Station. He hoped they were allowed to go ashore. The Quaddies who inhabited the place sounded interesting. Of course from the account of Count Vorkosigan’s last visit here, they probably wouldn’t be keen on a bunch of Barrayaran soldiers dropping in on them—except they didn’t know they were Barrayaran soldiers. Nope, he was Alby Worth from Zouave Twilight, never been to that Barrayar place in his life, nope, not him!

 

They’d also been told that Graf Station would probably be the last place to send or receive messages until they came back this way. He really ought to write a letter to his sister and his mother—and Abbie. He opened his eyes and sighed. He didn’t know what to do about Abbie. He still liked her, but he had doubts about pursuing a relationship at this point. A lot of doubts. He was only twenty years old, for heaven’s sake! Way too young to even think about settling down. No, he was going to have to…

 

The buzzer on his door sounded and when he waved it open, Anny was standing there. “Hi,” she said. “Busy?”

 

“Just working myself to death,” he replied without getting up from his bunk. “But come on in. What’s up?”

 

She did so and sat down on his desk chair. The cabin door slid shut. “Alby, have you tried out your new armor yet?”

 

“Uh, not really. I just had it fitted and ran it through some basic tests. Why? Something wrong with them?”

 

“No, it’s just that we can’t access the ship’s tactical net. Kind of irritating. I’ve put in requests through channels, but we keep getting the run-around. So I was just wondering…”

 

“If I could do something _not_ through channels?” He grinned.

 

“Well, yeah. I know how good you are at that sort of stuff. And I don’t need full access to the really secure command functions, just a feed from the ship’s sensors.”

 

“Ought to be possible. I’ll take a look.”

 

“Thanks.” She got up. “Gotta go. See you and dinner.” She left.

 

Alby sat up and smiled. A challenge!

 

 

 

 

**Chapter 3**

 

”Count Vorkosigan, I will not tolerate this sort of activity!”

 

Miles looked from Captain Rasmussen to Alby Vorsworth. “Is this true, Lieutenant?”

 

Alby reddened slightly and glanced at Anny Payne and Colonel Vorfannon for a moment before looking at Miles again. “Yes, sir. Sorry sir.”

 

“What were you trying to do?”

 

“Uh, we weren’t able to access the ship’s tactical net on our armor, My Lord. We’d made requests and nothing had happened and I just thought…”

 

“This is really my fault, sir,” said Anny. “I was concerned about our inability to hook into the net and asked Lieutenant Vorsworth if there was anything he could do.”

“It’s true that a number of requests have been made, Captain,” said Miles, turning back to Rasmussen. “Seems like a simple and reasonable thing. Why can’t it be done?”

 

 

“It’s not that simple!” snapped the mercenary. “I can’t just give you unlimited access! I’ve got security concerns!”

 

“Nobody’s asking for unlimited access, Captain,” said Miles soothingly. “Just a feed from your sensors and the ability to tie into the main tac net—at your discretion, of course. Can do?”

 

“I’ll see what can be done,” growled Rasmussen. “Now what are you going to do about his attempt to break into our system?” he pointed at Alby.

 

Miles swiveled his chair so he was looking directly at the young officer. “Lieutenant Vorsworth?”

 

“Yes, sir?”

 

“Don’t do that again.”

 

“No, sir!”

 

“Good. Now, on to the other business…”

 

“Vorkosigan!” Rasmussen’s face was turning red.

 

“Yes… Captain?”

 

“I insist that Vorsworth be punished!”

 

“Indeed? What do you suggest? Throw him in the brig? Confine him to quarters? Keel-haul him? Sorry, he’s an important member of my staff and necessary to this operation. I’ll see that he’s dealt with when we get home. If that’s not acceptable to you, Captain, then I guess we’ll just have to stop at Graf Station and send a message to Admiral Quinn and see what she has to say. Of course I cannot authorize any payment for you while we are waiting around since it will be at your insistence.”

 

Rasmussen got a bit redder but then snorted and sat down. “Very well! But I hold you responsible for him!”

 

“Of course. Now, back to business. We’ll be docking at Graf Station shortly and I’ve already contacted the portmaster. It’s granted shore leave to all of us and I’ll be meeting it and its wife for dinner to discuss things. I think we’ll be able to proceed the day after tomorrow. Will that work for you, Captain?”

 

“Should be okay. We can complete fueling and loading stores by then.”

 

“Excellent. Captain Payne, this will be the first test of your men’s ability to not be Barrayaran. How do you think they will do?”

 

“They know their fake identities, sir. We’ve been drilling them on that right along and they do well here aboard ship. I’m not sure they will be quite so smooth once ashore with a few drinks under their belts, but I’m hoping for the best.”

 

“Hoping for the best, Captain?” said Vorfannon sharply. “That doesn’t sound very certain. Count Vorkosigan, I suggest that we simply forget about the shore leave. It would be a lot safer.”

 

Miles frowned, and saw that Anny was as well. “Colonel, I think we will give it a try. There’s no telling how long this trip may last and I can’t approve of keeping the men penned up indefinitely. The amount of damage done if they slip up here will be minimal, I think. So if there are problems, let’s find out about them now instead of later, okay?”

 

“If you say so, My Lord.” He didn’t look convinced.

 

“I do. All right, I think that covers everything. We’ll meet again once we’re on our way. Captain Payne? Lieutenant Vorsworth? I’d be obliged if you would accompany me aboard the station in about an hour.”

 

“Yes, sir,” they answered, looking eager. The meeting broke up and Miles headed back to his cabin to change clothes and collect Roic. His armsman had his clothes all laid out for him; a conservative civilian suit in his favorite gray. The style and cut were in a Polian fashion which matched his pseudo-identity, but which did nothing to flatter his looks. Roic looked considerably better in his clothes—but then he always did.

 

“So, do you remember this place?”

 

“Hard not to, My-sir,” said Roic, nearly forgetting to drop the _my lord_. “Quite the adventure, that.”

 

“I don’t think there will be any adventure here this time.”

 

“Saving that part for later, are we, sir?”

 

Miles snorted, partly at the joke and partly at how much more at ease Roic was with him. The last time they’d been here Roic was a brand new armsman, very nervous with his position and responsibilities. Now he was a veteran, able to deal with anything—including his lord. Miles peeled off the clothes he was wearing, including the shoulder holster with his stunner, and put on the new outfit. He didn’t like going unarmed, but he couldn’t really see the need on Graf Station. The Quaddies had good security—at least under normal conditions, which he surely hoped these were—and it just wouldn’t be worth the red tape to get a stunner permit for a two-day stay that was really nothing but a social visit. Besides Roic was trained in close combat and Anny, hell Anny was sudden death with hands or feet. He would be well-protected.

 

They looked each other over and were satisfied. Then, making sure that their phony IDs were in order, they headed for the air lock. While he’d been dressing, the ship had docked at Graf Station. Anny and Alby were waiting for them. “Ready to go?’ he asked.

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“You’ve looked over the briefing information on the Quaddies? They are a bit… different, and not just physically. But they are friendly enough if treated with respect.” The two young officers nodded, and they moved into the air lock. As it cycled, Miles looked at Alby. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson, Lieutenant? You won’t do that again, will you?”

 

Alby shook his head and said “No sir.” Miles kept the smile off his face when he heard him mutter: “At least I sure won’t get _caught_ again.”

 

When the other end of the air lock opened, he was delighted to see that Bel Thorne was waiting for him. But his face lit up even more when he saw Bel’s wife, Nicol, sitting in a floater with a little girl in her lap. “Well, hello!” he exclaimed. “Quite the welcoming committee!”

 

Bel extended its hand and said: “Good to see you again, Mr. …Bothari. Welcome to Graf Station.” The docking bay had artificial gravity, so they all came out standing on their feet. Miles shook hands with Bel and then gave a quick hug to Nicol. “And this is little… Quicksilver?” The Quaddie girl looked up at him with wide, curious eyes. She mostly resembled Nichol, but he could see some of Bel in her, too. “She’s grown a bit since the last picture you sent me.”

 

“Quite a bit!” said Bel, proudly. “And quite a handful—six handfuls, actually.” Miles smiled. Yes, they did have six hands between the two parents. _And baby makes ten._ The Quaddies had been created by genetic engineering centuries earlier, while Barrayar had been locked in its Time of Isolation. They had been designed for living and working in free-fall so in addition to modifications to prevent the bone loss and other ailments caused by prolonged time in zero-gravity, the Quaddies also had an extra set of arms where their legs should have been. Just as they were about to be ‘marketed’ by the creating corporation, artificial gravity had been developed and the Quaddie line might have come to a sudden end. But they’d escaped and fled here to start lives of their own. The Union of Free Habitats, they called themselves and they had flourished in the centuries that followed.

 

“If you think one is a handful, try four!” countered Miles, resisting the urge to whip out his holocube on the spot. “But some introductions are in order. Roic, you know, of course, but please meet two of my… associates. This is Anny Payne and this is Alby Worth. Folks, this is my old friend Portmaster Bel Thorne, its wife Nicol, and daughter Quicksilver.” Handshakes were exchanged all around and Anny lingered over the child for a moment, smiling.

 

“Well, let’s take care of the necessities,” said Bel, gesturing toward the security checkpoint, “and then we can have a tour before dinner.” Their bogus IDs passed the check with no problem, although several of the Quaddie guards scowled at Miles.

 

“Huh,” said Miles once they were out of earshot. “Hope none of them recognized me. Hadn’t really thought about that possibility.”

 

“Not to worry,” said Bel. “They’re all after your time, Miles. Either from another habitat or too young to remember much about your last time here. I checked the duty roster and that’s why I had your ship dock at this bay.”

 

“Good thinking. Uh, what about Lieutenant Corbeau? We’re not likely to bump into him, are we?” The Barrayaran counsel to Quaddiespace would definitely recognize him!

 

“He’s over on Union this week,” answered Bel. “He likes to travel around when he can. Don’t worry, nothing’s going to blow your cover. And I’m not sure anyone would recognize you in any case. Look at you! You look fantastic! What have you been doing with yourself?”

 

“Oh, I guess marriage and fatherhood agree with me. You two aren’t looking bad, either.” They exchanged stories as they walked along one of the main thoroughfares in the part of the station meant for visiting downsiders. It had artificial gravity and was lined with establishments designed to painlessly separate a visitor from his money. Miles suspected that the troops from Anny’s company would spend quite a lot of their liberty right here. Anny and Alby looked at some of the places with interest, but Miles reminded himself that they were hardly neophytes to the nexus anymore. Most of the people in the area were downsiders, but Quaddies zipped by in their float chairs frequently, too.

 

He wondered if Bel ought to be using a float chair. The herm was limping noticeably. “How are you doing, Bel?” he asked quietly.

 

“Oh, good days and bad days, I guess. I spend most of my time in free-fall so it doesn’t bother me that much.” Miles nodded grimly. During the earlier incident, the _ba_ had infected Bel with the same bio-weapon that he’d later gotten Miles with, but the hell-plague had had hours longer to work on Bel and the damage had been a lot worse. He wondered if Lily Durona’s treatments would do any good for Bel.

 

“The muscle pain and weakness is the worst. I’ve thought about having my arms and legs lopped off and have them grow me new ones. It might actually be worth it.”

 

Miles grunted noncommittally, but Anny, overhearing said: “They can do it very well, now, sir. My left arm is regrown and I can’t even tell.”

 

“Really?” said Bel, looking interested. “Did you… uh, have an accident?”

 

“From my point of view it was, sir.”

 

“Interesting. Actually, I have looked into it.” He paused for a moment and then went on. “If I went back to Beta Colony, they could… they say they could replace my legs with another pair of arms.”

 

Miles did a double-take. “Really? They could make you a quaddie?”

 

“Well, almost. The physical part wouldn’t be all that difficult. Learning to use them properly would probably take a lot longer.”

 

“Huh. That would sort of commit you to staying here…?”

 

“I made that decision a long time ago, Miles.” It reached out and took Nicol’s hand.

 

“Indeed.” Miles tried to visualize Bel as a quaddie. The image was disconcerting, but not outrageous. It might even make sense for it.

 

They crossed over into the free-fall side of the station and Miles said: “Well, this is a change!” The large open space was built for zero-G with shops and kiosks at all levels—and all angles—but there were now a number of conventional walkways connecting them that appeared to have gravity.

 

“Yes,” said Bel, “They were just installed two years ago. The maintenance gangs pointed out that the cost of the walkways would be offset by the long-term costs of cleaning downsider puke out of the air recyclers. We only have them in a few areas so far and some areas will never have them, but most everyone seems to think they are working.” As he spoke, Nicol put her floater into one of the racks that dotted the station and she and her daughter floated alongside the group, just outside of the narrow gravity field generated by the walkway.

 

“Only about half a gee, isn’t it?” commented Miles.

 

“One third standard. Enough to keep downsiders’ lunches down, but not enough to hurt a Quaddie if he should happen to stray into the field.”

 

“Urg, I might still lose my lunch,” muttered Alby. Up ahead the walkway went into a sort of corkscrew shape before going off at right angles to their current direction. It was a bit unsettling.

 

“Just keep your eyes on the walkway at your feet,” suggested Bel. That did seem to help and they made the turn with no embarrassments. The tour went on and Miles enjoyed the fact that he could take in the sights without having a crisis to deal with like he did the last time he was here. In fact, this entire expedition was lacking the sort of urgency his missions usually did. For once it didn’t actually matter that much if he failed. Barrayar wasn’t in danger and the only thing that would really suffer was his reputation as a problem solver. And somehow he didn’t worry as much about his reputation anymore. They eventually ended up at an upscale restaurant that had both gravity and free-fall sections. Nicol and Quicksilver were back in floaters. Once they were seated, Bel touched a control on the table top. “We have privacy, so speak freely.”

 

“Do you know why we’re here?” asked Miles.

 

“Well, your message was a bit cryptic, but by ‘old business’, I’m guessing that it has something to do with where our old friend the _ba_ was taking the babies, correct?”

 

“Correct. The Cetas couldn’t find out and they think we might succeed where they failed.”

 

“High praise,” said Bel, clearly impressed.

 

“Or just wishful thinking. Speaking of which, other than the pleasure of seeing you three, I was hoping you might have some thoughts or information that could help.”

 

“I’ve certainly given it some thought over the years,” said Bel, nodding. “And frankly, I was a bit surprised that we didn’t have an influx of Cetagandan warships coming through here to search. The fact that we didn’t led me to believe that the Cetas got the location from the _ba_ and they just took care of things quietly. But you are saying that’s not the case?”

 

“No. I understand the Star Crèche did get a lot out of the _ba_ , but not that. It took that to its grave with it.”

 

“If it ever knew. Could it have just been a middle person?”

 

“Unlikely, from what the haut women told me of its position within the Crèche. Not impossible, but not likely. But even if it was, we still have a maximum search radius based upon when the babies would have had to be decanted. Even if we postulate the replicators being transferred to a much faster ship after leaving here, there’s a limit to how far they could have gone.”

 

“Unless they were transferred to a ship controlled by the _ba_ which had the people and facilities to care for the babies after they were born, sir,” said Alby Vorsworth.

 

Miles sighed. “Yes, I’ve considered that possibility. But if that’s the case then they could have been going almost anywhere and this search becomes nearly hopeless. For now we have to assume that the _ba_ was on its way to the final destination and that it is within the range radius we’ve established.”

 

“Well then,” said Bel, “the only possible help I could give would be under the assumption that any confederates of the _ba_ also passed through Graf Station on the way to their hypothetical base.”

 

“Yes,” said Miles, “I was hoping…” Bel smiled and held up its hand. It had a data chip in it.

 

“This contains a record of every ship to pass through here bound for Xerxes stretching back twenty years. I’ve tagged every one which did nothing but refuel without loading or off-loading cargo. Also any which purchased items which might be of use in setting up a colony somewhere.”

 

“Bel has been up every night since he got your message compiling this,” said Nicol with a tone of reproach in her voice.

 

Her husband shrugged. “We owe Miles any help we can give him, love.”

 

“True,” she conceded. “For several reasons. I wish you every fortune in your search… Admiral.”

 

“Thank you, Nicol,” said Miles sincerely, taking the proffered chip. “And thank you, Bel.” He turned and handed the chip to Alby. “Grist for your mill.”

 

Their meals arrived and the conversation became general again for a while and Miles did bring out his holo-cube to show off pictures of his children. But as they were finishing up their deserts, Bel became very serious. “Miles?”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“Be careful.”

 

“I’m always careful.”

 

“Sure you are,” said Bel with a strained smirk. “But be _extra_ careful. We both saw first-hand what the _ba_ was capable of. It killed without the slightest hesitation or mercy and it was ready and able to commit mass murder or start a major war to get what it wanted. You have to assume that its associates will be of the same mind. Don’t give them any chances, you hear me?”

 

Miles glanced at Quicksilver, but Nicol was deliberately distracting the child with a sweet.

 

He nodded. “I hear you.”

 

 

* * *

 

Alby kept fingering the data chip in his pocket all the way back. He was still burning with embarrassment over having gotten caught trying to break into the Dendarii tactical network. Damn! He hadn’t made a screw-up like that in years! But he saw how he’d been caught. He just wasn’t sure what he could do differently… It was probably good that he’d been dragged away from his comconsole by this expedition on the station. Otherwise he would not have been able to resist trying it again—and getting caught again. No, cool off for a bit, think about it for a while. Look at it again later. In any case he had a new task waiting for him in this data chip.

 

They came back to the entertainment area that had artificial gravity and noticed that the place was now crowded with people wearing light gray uniforms. Ah, the crew and troops had been given station leave. Anny paused and said: “Excuse me, sir, would it be all right if I dropped out here? I’d like to… observe my men for a bit.”

 

“Sure,” said Vorkosigan. “Take your time. Have some fun. You, too, Alby. It might be your last chance for a while.”

 

“But I wanted to get started on analyzing that data we got from the portmaster…”

 

“Tomorrow, Lieutenant, tomorrow is soon enough.” He smiled and waved and walked on with his armsman following.

 

“Come on, Alby, let’s look around,” said Anny. He hesitated for a moment and then shrugged and followed.

 

Aside from the Quaddie workers, the establishments really weren’t that much different from places he’d seen on other worlds or other space stations. They offered drinks, food, trinkets, entertainments, more drinks, and, of course, sex. The Dendariis, fake and real, seemed to be sampling all of the above.

 

Everyone was behaving themselves, although it was still early. There was a noticeable presence of Quaddie police patrollers in their float chairs with holstered stunners, but they were keeping their distance. There were some other visitors—downsiders the Quaddies called them—but not a lot. There were no large convoys docked at the moment and only a few other ships besides the _Raptor_. Quaddiespace wasn’t heavily travelled from what Alby had read. The Quaddies had originally fled here to be as far from the rest of human space as possible. If they had really wanted to be isolated, they should have picked a dead-end system like Barrayar, but they had not and eventually the nexus had caught up with them and then moved on past. The other wormhole exits from the system now led places people wanted to go and traffic increased year by year.

 

Anny exchanged greeting with some of her men, exchanged a few words with her first sergeant, and then started checking out some of the establishments. Alby tagged along. Neither one of them was hungry after their dinner, but they tried out a few drinks that claimed to be Quaddie specialties. While they were pretty good, none were especially memorable. Some of the entertainment places were a bit more interesting. They had the usual array of holo-games that would allow you to waste a few minutes for a ridiculous sum of money, but they also had a few which had been designed for Quaddies with four sets of hands, but which had been modified to allow two sets of human hands to play instead. Most of them were of the move-and-shoot-at-things variety, but in this case, one player handled the movement while the other shot. This called for a lot of cooperation and coordination and it seemed to appeal to Anny’s troopers. Clumps of them were congregated around the machines with the players shouting and cursing at each other and their comrades hooting with laughter as they tried to get things right. Anny and Alby watched for a while, laughing with the rest, and then eventually they were talked into playing themselves. This drew even bigger audiences. They actually did pretty well, with Alby handling the movement while Anny was the gunner. But each round got progressively harder and they were soon shouting at each other: _Left! Left! No, your other left!_ Much to the amusement of her men. It was actually a hell of a lot of fun and they were both gasping with laughter by the time they called it quits.

 

After that it was time to cool off and have another drink. They found a quiet tavern and were soon sitting in a booth with tall mugs of the local beer. “Well!” said Alby after a while. “I must say this isn’t anything I ever expected when I first went to the Academy. An honest-to-God cloak and dagger mission, traveling to exotic worlds, a dangerous enemy, and a beautiful girl sidekick. It’s something right out of the holovids!”

 

Anny laughed. “Since when am I your sidekick?”

 

“True. Okay, then, from your perspective you’ve got a handsome guy sidekick. Better?”

 

“Oh, much.”

 

“Although I guess you wish it was Jer instead of me.”

 

“Well, to be honest, if you’d asked me a few hours ago I would have said yes. But after that last thing the portmaster said, I’m sort of glad he isn’t along. Bio-weapons. Damn, I’ll face plasma fire, but bio-weapons! Brrr.” She shivered.

 

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, Jer’s back at Fort Vorolson rattling around in that big house all alone. Poor guy.” Once they had gotten back from Novo Paveo, Alby had finally convinced Anny and Jer to go in on renting a nice house in the nearby town. With all the losses, there was a bit of a housing glut and they’d gotten a good price. Alby had more money than he knew what to do with, but Anny and Jer weren’t nearly so well off and had to pinch marks. Or at least they used to. Anny’s salary as a captain was almost twice what she’d made as a lieutenant, and to her shock, the _Emperor’s Thanks_ that she’d been awarded had come with a substantial cash endowment, too. For once Alby didn’t feel obliged to try and help out his friends at every turn.

 

“I do miss him,” said Anny wistfully.

 

“I’m sure he misses you, too.”

 

“Oh, he’s probably been holding parties in the house every night since we’ve been gone,” joked Anny.

 

“Yeah, right,” grinned Alby. That wasn’t Jer’s style at all and they both knew it. “Well,” he said raising his glass. “To absent friends, living and dead.” Anny clinked her glass against his and they both drank.

 

The next morning Alby only had a mild hangover, which some pain pills took care of. He got dressed, had breakfast, and plugged the portmaster’s data chip into his comconsole and got to work. But he’d only been at a few minutes when Anny came by. “Count Vorkosigan wants to see us,” she said.

 

He followed after her. “Any of your guys get into trouble last night?’ he asked.

 

“Not a one. Got to be a record of some sort. Wish I had some way to reward them for that.”

 

They reached Vorkosigan’s cabin and Roic let them in. The Count was seated at a desk and he waved them to chairs. He didn’t look very cheerful.

 

“Well, we leave here in a few hours and the hunt begins in earnest,” he said. “You ready for it?”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“Good, good.” He paused and scowled. “I’ve been thinking about what Portmaster Thorne said last night. This _could_ be a dangerous mission and I think you need to know everything.”

 

“Sir?” said Anny.

 

“Yes. You probably noticed that the information from the Cetagandans in the report I gave you was pretty sparse. That was deliberate. What you haven’t been told is that the Cetas sent four teams of highly trained, highly experienced operatives to conduct their own hunt.” He paused and his scowl grew deeper.

 

“Three of them disappeared without a trace.”

 

 

 

 

**Chapter 4**

 

It took them two weeks to pass through Xerxes, Mardonius and Walcheren, which was a bit too fast for Anny’s tastes. A total of twelve wormhole jumps in fourteen days left her feeling groggy and strung out. In between jumps she drilled her men almost non-stop on their chemical/bio-warfare, CBW, protocols. Their battle armor was nearly impervious to most of the normal chemical or biological weapons, but there were some exceptions. A few of the chemicals were deliberately made to eat their way through space suits or battle armor—especially through the vulnerable joints—to get at the occupants. Even a few of the bio-weapons had that capability. Count Vorkosigan mentioned having faced one that was a mixture of a chemical corrosive to penetrate a suit and then a bio-weapon that would activate once inside. Fortunately, most of those sorts of weapons were pretty rare and their armor would protect them from the run-of-the mill stuff in general use.

 

Or rather, the stuff that was rumored to be ready for general use. Thankfully, the actual use of chemical and biological weapons was uncommon throughout the Nexus. There were a lot of conventions and treaties in play which outlawed their use, just as there were similar ones banning the use of nuclear weapons on planets or against civilian populations. Of course people did break those treaties from time to time (as the Cetagandans had on Barrayar) and only rarely were the users punished for doing so; still it didn’t happen frequently. But, from the Count’s warning, they were dealing with people who didn’t give a fig about treaties or conventions and who might have access to some of the most cunningly designed bio-weapons in the galaxy.

 

So they drilled. The two biggest dangers a man in battle armor faced while in a CBW environment was if his suit got pierced by a normal weapon, letting the nasties in, or, if he survived unscathed, getting _out_ of his suit (presumably covered with nasties) after things were over. In the former case, about all that could be done was to seal up the holes and hope nothing had gotten in that the suit’s automatic medical functions couldn’t handle. For the latter problem, the remedy was a very thorough decontamination process when the troopers got back to base, followed by isolation and observation.

 

Her men, already in a bad mood from the frequent wormhole jumps, groused and griped at the tedious, annoying, and sometimes humiliating procedures needed to convert contaminated assault troopers and their gear back into clean, healthy men and machines that posed no risk to anyone. The process was _very_ thorough and while they mostly used simulations and dry runs with some of the steps omitted, they did do the real thing with a few ‘volunteers’ to show everyone how it was done. Anny toyed very strongly with the idea of going through the entire procedure herself, just to show her men she would do anything she demanded of them. But that would require stripping down buck naked in front of everyone and getting sprayed and scrubbed with a number of different chemicals. Alby and First Sergeant Nikolaidis managed to talk her out of it, to her secret relief.

 

They were assisted in all this by the ship’s second officer, a woman named Danielle Velucci, who was a Dendarii CBW expert. She had been briefed sufficiently on the mission to know the sort of potential threat they faced. She was in charge of the ship-side decontamination facility and Anny got to know her pretty well during those two weeks. “Have you ever had to do this for real?” she asked her after one of the drills.

 

Velucci, who looked to be about twenty years older than Anny, took a while before she answered. “Yes, once. I’m originally from a place called Bari. The government there isn’t—wasn’t—terribly enlightened and the people were getting sick of it. There were protests and riots and the government responded with the usual irritant gases and sprays, but after a while the protestors came up with their own protective gear. So then someone—I don’t know who—came up with the idea of a mutated flu virus that was especially virulent. It could infect a whole city in a few days and would then knock everyone flat on their backs for a week or more. I guess the idea was to calm things down for a while, let the government reassert control. Well, it worked. Too well. It was supposed to be non-lethal and it was—if you were healthy to begin with. But if you were too young or too old, or already sick… well, I don’t think they ever got a full tally of the dead but it was in the thousands.”

 

“My God,” whispered Anny.

 

“Yeah. Anyway, my unit was in charge of decontaminating troops who had to go into those cities. There was a serum, of course, but it wasn’t fully effective, so to play it safe they wanted the decontamination routines. Sometimes they worked. It was a hell of a mess, Anny. Right after that I got the hell out.” She nodded her head and smiled a grim smile. “The government fell the next year, but I never went back.” She took a deep breath. “But from what I understand of this operation, we could be facing things a whole lot worse than the flu! Come on, let’s take a look of the results from that last drill!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“If we changed our approach vector like this, we could start our surface scans on the very first orbit, Lieutenant,” said Miles, pointing to the bridge navigational display. The Dendarii navigator looked skeptical at first and then looked wary.

 

“I’d have to clear that with the Captain, sir.”

 

“Of course, but I’m sure he’ll agree. Why don’t you lay it in while I talk to him?”

 

“I don’t know…”

 

“Mr. Bothari.” Miles turned and saw Captain Rasmussen standing right behind him.

 

“Ah, there you are, Captain. I was just…”

 

“ _Mr. Bothari_ , a word, if you please?” Rasmussen was frowning and gesturing toward an empty area of the bridge. Miles’ eyebrows went up at the man’s tone, but he smiled and followed along as directed.

 

“Yes, Captain?”

 

“Count Vorkosigan,” he said in a low but insistent voice. _“Get the hell off my bridge!”_

 

“What?” _What?!_

 

“You heard me. Now get out and stay out unless I send for you!”

 

“Now wait a minute! I’m…”

 

“I know who you _think_ you are, Vorkosigan! But Admiral Naismith is dead. And even if he were still alive, it wouldn’t matter a damn. Admiral Quinn is the commander of the Dendarii now, not you!”

 

“But…”

 

“You,” Rasmussen said, poking Miles with a finger, “are a _passenger_! A passenger on _my_ ship! Yes, you are the client and you are paying the bills, but my orders are strictly to take you where you want to go—nothing more! I’ve tried to be polite, I’ve tried to accommodate you in every way. But I can still find you in here at all hours, badgering my crew…”

 

“I’m not badgering…!”

 

“Badgering my crew, interfering in their activities and trying to take command. Admiral Quinn warned me about you, Vorkosigan. ‘Don’t give him a centimeter’, she told me. ‘Because he’ll want a light-year next!’ I thought she was exaggerating, but I can see that she was understating the situation! Now, you are going to leave and restrict yourself to those areas in which you belong. I am posting a guard on the hatch to the bridge and you will _not_ be admitted without my permission. Are we clear?”

 

Miles’ mouth opened and shut several times but not a sound came out. _Who does this guy think he is?_ But it was obvious that Rasmussen thought that he was the captain, and unfortunately he was right. Before Miles could come up with any sort of counter-argument, he found himself hustled off the bridge and the hatch shut behind him. He stood and stared at the hatch, fuming, for several minutes, even after a Dendarii in half-armor arrived and took up a position in front of it.

 

He finally spun on his heel and stomped back to his cabin. He went in, annoyed that there was no way to slam the hatch, and flopped down into a chair. “Uh, everything all right, M’lord?” asked Roic.

 

“Fine, just fine.” _Damn! What’s the matter with the man? He should be grateful for my help! Sure, he’s got a solid record of his own, but he doesn’t have a tenth my experience in this sort of operation!_ And was what he said about what Elli had told him true? Don’t give him a centimeter? Why would she do that? For that matter, why had she stuck him with Rasmussen in the first place? There were still some ship captains in the Dendarii who had worked with him in the past. Why not team him up with one of them?

 

_Because she’s afraid I’ll run roughshod over them?_

 

The answer to that question— _yes, of course she is_ —suddenly made things a lot clearer.

 

_She’s afraid of the ghost of Admiral Naismith—so she gave me a captain who doesn’t believe in ghosts._

 

Miles had created the Dendarii. Forged them, quite literally from nothing, into one of the most respected mercenary groups in the nexus. Their exploits had become legendary. And Elli Quinn had been a big part of that; her help and support over the years (at several levels) had been critical. And when Miles had been forced to give it up, Elli had taken over and done a great job carrying on. The Dendarii were hers now. But Naismith’s ghost was still there. Fading year by year to be sure, but still a name to be reckoned with. _And Elli doesn’t want to have to reckon with it._ That was why she hadn’t been willing to meet with him face to face! Because she knew that if he really tried, he could run roughshod over _her_ , too.

 

The realization came like a shock. He’d loved Elli. Loved her, and admired her. She was as brave and as cool under fire as… as… well, as Ekaterin. He’d handed the Dendarii over to her, trusted her with, what had been up to then, his greatest creation. _Is she afraid I’ll try to take it back? Steal it away from her?_ It hurt to think that she didn’t trust him.

 

_Or maybe she doesn’t trust herself._

 

Because she’d loved him, too. Passionately. Desperately at times. Was she still carrying a flame for him? He knew she’d had lovers since they’d parted, but she’d never married. Was she still…? _No, damp down that ego, boy! She’s in love with the Dendarii now, not you._

 

Yes. It couldn’t have been easy for her, taking his place. She’d filled in for him plenty of times when he had to be away from the fleet, but she and everyone else knew it was only temporary. And even after it became permanent, it probably took her a long time to make people really believe that. She’d been operating in his shadow for years and it probably took a long time for that shadow to dissipate. Could he blame her for not wanting him there, casting his shadow again?

 

 _Oh, Elli, Elli, I’m sorry. I never thought…_ No he hadn’t, had he? Half the reason he’d agreed to do this for Gregor was the thought he could play with the Dendarii again. And that’s all it would have been for him: just playing. Like the reunions the old veterans had back home. Reminiscing about the old times, rehashing the battles, remembering the triumphs. Except this time it wouldn’t just be rehashing, it would be _reliving_! One last mission! For old time’s sake! It was going to be _fun_.

 

Fun. _Yeah, right._ For him. But what about for Elli? Would it have been fun for her, too?

 

He sighed and his fists unclenched and his anger at Rasmussen faded. _Yeah, right. Right._

 

“Uh, Milord?” Roic appeared in front of him. “It’s past lunch time, Milord. Can I get you something?”

 

“Yeah,” said Miles stirring from his chair. “See if the galley can get me a piece of humble pie, will you?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Alby leaned back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Another success. Two in a row now and it almost—almost!—made up for his failure with the Dendarii tactical net. That still burned, but he felt like he was back in the groove again. He’d just finished breaking into the traffic control computers of the planet Mardonius and downloading all of its records. A week earlier he’d done the same thing at Xerxes. The practice he’d gotten at Novo Paveo had been a real help since most traffic control systems used similar protocols. Now he needed to start comparing the ship listings from Graf Station that they’d gotten from Portmaster Thorne with this new data and see if there were any patterns.

 

But before he could begin, his door buzzer buzzed and Anny came in. “Hi,” she said. “Busy?”

 

“No more than normal. What’s up?”

 

“Oh, I just wanted to tell you that we finally got limited access to the tactical net.”

 

“Really?” he said in interest. “I didn’t think Rasmussen would ever bend—just to spite us.”

 

“Well, so far it’s only a feed from the ship’s sensors. Which is a lot better than we had, but not as good as a full link to the tac net.”

 

“Huh,” said Alby. He leaned forward and typed in a set of commands to slave his comconsole to his own suit of armor down in the armory. Yeah, he could call up sensor data from the ship, but nothing else. He typed some more. “Okay, they’ve set up an isolated server to share the sensor data, but it’s got layers of firewall protection to prevent anything—like commands—going the other way. Still, there’s got to be some link-up. They must want to see what _our_ sensors are seeing to feed into their net. I bet if I…”

 

“Alby,” said Anny, tilting her head. “Don’t. This is good enough for now. Please don’t get into trouble again.”

 

“All right, all right. I’ll be good.” _For now, anyway._

 

“Have you learned anything from your _authorized_ hacking?”

 

“Just collecting data so far. I was about to really get down to it when you came in.”

 

“Oh, well, don’t let me disturb you…”

 

“No problem.” He waved her to a chair. “I need a little break anyway. What have you been up to?”

 

She sat down. “I’ve been drilling my men to face every situation I can think of, but I’m still not sure I see what we will have to do with all this. From what the Count has told us, those three missing Cetagandan teams were very small, only a half-dozen men or so, in small ships. They could have been taken out in space or on the ground by a very modest force. We’ve got a cruiser and an assault company. That ought to be enough to handle whatever the _ba’s_ confederates have. I mean they can’t have a big military force or someone would have noticed.”

 

“You’d think,” agreed Alby. “And the last thing they’d want is to attract attention to themselves. That would draw a Cetagandan force down on them they couldn’t possibly beat. So I’m guessing that whatever happened to those scouts didn’t involve any large, flashy explosions, but something small and sneaky. Of course the fourth team, the one that made it back, was just as small. So we can only assume that they didn’t fall into whatever trap had been set.”

 

“That would make sense,” said Anny, nodding. “The three that vanished made it to Walcheren, but the fourth one got there, too, and made it back again, without finding any trace of the other two who had gotten there before them. The third one that vanished came later, right?”

 

“Yeah. So what can we infer from that?”

 

“That there was no space-based ambush at Walcheren—or on the way to Walcheren—or the surviving team wouldn’t have gotten back, either.”

 

“Right. So whatever happened to them, either happen _on_ Walcheren, or somewhere beyond Walcheren. But not too far beyond Walcheren. From the Count’s data, the _haut_ babies had to have been born less than a month after leaving Walcheren—assuming they were going to leave and Walcheren was not the final destination.”

 

“So how are we going to find that out? I mean a planet is a hell of a big place and you can hide a lot on it—like we found out on Novo Paveo!”

 

“I’m not sure,” said Alby. “I’m hoping that I can figure some things out from this traffic data I’ve got—and what I hope to get at Walcheren. If we can track where the ships go, it ought to lead us to the base.”

 

“Right,” said Anny, getting up from her chair. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She left.

 

Alby got to work, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that he was still missing vital information. Portmaster Thorne’s list of ships took him to Xerxes and there were two wormholes leading away from there. But they already knew the trail was to Mardonius, not the other one. So he compared Thorne’s list to what the traffic controls at Xerxes said and crossed nearly half the ships off Thorne’s list. Only the ones going on to Mardonius mattered. But Mardonius only had a single exit leading to Walcheren. The Cetagandans had already ruled out Mardonius, so everything of interest would lead on to Walcheren.

 

_Walcheren, Walcheren’s the key._

 

 

* * *

 

 

The ship was cleared for action. Weapons manned and ready, shields at full strength, air-tight bulkheads sealed. Miles stood on the bridge with his hands clasped behind him. Captain Rasmussen had invited him there to observe the final jump into Walcheren. A peace gesture, perhaps?

 

The time to the jump was counting down. Just a few seconds now. Miles tensed slightly but only for the jump itself. He had no real worries about what they’d find at the other end. They were traveling a well-established trade route and the chance that some sort of ambush was waiting for them was vanishingly small. Still, why take chances?

 

The count reached zero and that familiar touch of nausea and disorientation that he’d experienced thousands of time before passed through him as the ship was folded through five-space and was spat back into normal space like a melon seed. “Jump completed,” announced someone unnecessarily.

 

“All stations report,” ordered Rasmussen. Responses came back in a stream, but the only one Miles cared about was from the sensor operator.

 

“All clear, sir,” he reported. “The nearest large contact is at a hundred and fifty million clicks, inbound toward the planet. Looks to be a merchie. There’s a navigation buoy at five hundred thousand that just picked us up. It’s broadcasting a standard request that we identify ourselves, our intentions, and our flight plan.”

 

“All routine,” said Rasmussen. “Very good. Stand us down from General Quarters. Mr. Bothari,” he turned to Miles. “Do you wish us to respond the buoy?”

 

“Yes, go ahead, please. Give them our cover story and our ETA to orbit.”

 

Rasmussen gave the orders and the ship headed toward the inhabited planet. “Is there anything else for now, Mr. Bothari?”

 

“I don’t think so,” said Miles. “I’d like to have a meeting about an hour before we make orbit. If that’s agreeable.”

 

“That would be about nineteen hours from now. Very well, I shall see you then.” He nodded at him with a tight smile and then turned away. Miles rolled his eyes and withdrew. _Well, it’s better than being tossed out on my ass._

 

Nineteen hours later they assembled in Miles’ stateroom; Rasmussen, Vorfannon, Anny, Alby and Roic. “Well, we are finally here,” he began. “Now we need to decide what to do. Alby, are you going to be able to break into the local traffic control computers like you’ve done before?”

 

“I think so, sir. We’ve still got an almost thirty second light-speed delay from here, which is too much for the sort of things I need to do. But from what I have been able to observe, it looks like the computers here are very similar to the others we’ve encountered. Shouldn’t be a problem.” He paused and then added. “They really aren’t very security conscious out here, are they, sir?”

 

Miles shrugged. “The outer reaches of the nexus are a lot different from the Core. Back home we always have to be on guard against invasion. Wormhole exits guarded by battle stations and squadrons of warships, sensor platforms, weapons platforms, in times of trouble minefields and a lot more. Out here… it’s different. Most colonies haven’t got the money to build or maintain such things—nor any reason to.”

 

“Surely, they have to worry about pirates or raiders?” said Anny.

 

“Pirates are going to be after ships they can grab. The only ships are going to be ones passing through to somewhere else. Most small worlds consider that to be the problem of the ship owners. Take Xerxes and Mardonius and now Walcheren: marginal worlds with few resources and little or nothing to export. The only real external business they have is supplying ships and providing shore leave for crews, and maybe a few unique luxury goods they can sell. They don’t have any ships of their own to lose. So if pirates become a problem, it will be the ship owners and the businesses on the bigger worlds those ships are traveling between, who will have to do something about it. For example, there’s a substantial world, Point Pleasant, I think it’s called, a few dozen jumps beyond Walcheren. A lot of the traffic passing through here is headed there. They have a small navy and if ships started getting pirated around here, they’d probably send out patrols to stop it. Or the ship owners could hire mercenaries as escorts or pirate hunters, right Captain?”

 

“Yes,” replied Rasmussen. “It’s common work for mercenaries. Of course _some_ mercenaries are little better than pirates themselves. In fact, there are those who do both. They act as escorts when people are willing to pay, and if business falls off, they turn pirate—which usually generates more escort business. Quite a racket. Extortion, really. I’ve been hired to break up that sort of thing once or twice.”

 

“But what about raiders?” Anny persisted. “It would seem like undefended planets would be ripe for being looted.”

 

“It does happen,” says Miles. “But most planets do have ground defenses, even if it’s just some sort of militia. Add in the fact that the poorer and less defended a planet is, the less it’s going to have that’s worth looting. Unless the attacker wants the planet as a base—like what almost happened on Dounby.” Anny Payne frowned. She’d been instrumental in foiling a particularly nasty take-over attempt on a defenseless world during her senior year training cruise at the Academy.

 

“There _are_ some really bad spots in remote corners of the nexus,” said Rasmussen. “Places where the raiders and pirates have taken over completely. The local people are reduced to virtual slaves with nothing to protect them at all. It can be really ugly. It usually doesn’t last too long, though. Eventually some stronger power moves in and cleans them out. Or the pirates can’t get the parts and supplies to keep their ships running and they’re absorbed—or wiped out—by the locals. Fortunately, the volume of space we’re interested in here is pretty civilized.”

 

“Which will, hopefully, make our job a bit easier,” said Miles.

 

“You are still planning to land on Walcheren, My Lord?” asked Vorfannon.

 

“Yes,” said Miles. “Once we make orbit, we’ll give Lieutenant Vorsworth a few hours to do his work on the traffic computers, meanwhile Captain Rasmussen’s people will conduct sensor sweeps of the planet, while he negotiates for shore leave rights. Unless Alby or the sensors come up with something unexpected, we’ll go dirtside and see what we can find out.”

 

“You will be going personally, My Lord?”

 

“That’s the plan. During an investigation I’ve found it very helpful to actually be able to ask people questions.” He smiled at Vorfannon.

 

“What sort of questions do you plan to ask?”

 

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet, Colonel. I think I’ll have to play this one by ear.”

 

“You _will_ be taking an escort, My Lord.”

 

“Of course. The ‘shore leave’ party will be made up primarily of Captain Payne’s troopers. She will be with them and keeping them in support range. The rest of her company will be on alert and ready to drop immediately if necessary. And, naturally, I’ll have Armsman Roic.” Vorfannon grunted but didn’t say anything else.

 

“All right,” said Miles, “I think that’s all for now. I’ll let you know when I want to go down.”

 

 

 * * *

 

 

For the next few hours it seemed like everyone had something to do except Anny. The ship’s crew were busy settling into orbit and running their scans, Alby was hacking into the traffic computer, Count Vorkosigan was keeping tabs on the results coming in, and all her troops and officers were getting ready for the coming operation. But the Count wanted her to accompany him personally and ride herd on the platoon she’d selected to act as troops on shore leave, so her own preparations were minimal. About the only thing she could do was study up on the planet itself and the colony there.

 

Walcheren had been settled about two hundred years previously by a consortium from Earth. The climate was pleasant enough, but it was an old planet. All tectonic activity had ended ages ago, so there was no mountain-building going on and whatever mountains the place once possessed had been eroded to nothing. There was a lot of water, too, so the end result was lots and lots of low-lying swamps and marshes with relatively little dry ground. The planet had no magnetic field to speak of, which meant that aside from radiation hazards, the atmosphere was being slowly stripped away by the solar wind—although that wouldn’t become a serious problem for a few hundred thousand years. Add in the fact that the world had no significant natural resources and the end result was a pretty marginal planet. Which meant that the colony planted here had been pretty marginal, too.

 

That seemed to be the way of things in the nexus. The initial frenzied land grab from Old Earth after the development of FTL travel, when everyone had the irrational fear that all the good planets were going to get snatched up by someone else, had led to the colonization to some truly marginal worlds like Komarr and Beta Colony. These days no one would even considering putting a colony on worlds like those. As the nexus expanded outward, hundreds, then thousands, and by one estimate, now over a million star systems had been visited by humans. Only a tiny fraction of them had worlds that were even remotely habitable, but that still added up to a lot of worlds.

 

The big prizes were worlds that needed no terraforming. Places where you could step out of a shuttle and breathe the air and drink the water and plant your crops and hopefully not get eaten by big ravenous monsters—or tiny microscopic ones, either. Throw in some valuable resources and such a planet could be worth incredible sums—or be worth fighting a war over. Such worlds were rare. Far more common were worlds that were habitable if you didn’t mind certain problems—or could find ways to solve those problems. ‘Fixer-uppers’ as it were. Barrayar had been like that and Sergyar, too. A sub-class of those types of planets were ones where it was easier to fix up the _colonists_ rather than the planets. Genetic engineering could allow people to adapt to worlds with too much of this or too little of that in the air; planets that were too hot or too cold or with too much gravity, or with biological hazards. Anny had visited a few like those on her journeys. Finally, there were worlds like Komarr that would take centuries-long terraforming efforts to make them habitable. Few bothered with that sort of thing anymore unless the world had some other reason to be valuable, like rare resources or a strategic location.

 

Colonies, like worlds, came in all sorts of varieties. Some were planted by powerful backers with lots of people and resources to commit. Others were more modest ventures, often composed of people who simply wanted to get away from wherever they were because of political or religious differences. Idealists hoping to establish their own utopias were common, too. And some colonies were just shoe-string affairs set up by the opportunistic or desperate.

 

Walcheren appeared to have been of the second sort. The world itself wasn’t appealing enough to attract a major backer, but it was good enough that people could live there without much additional effort. The original discoverers had sold the colonization rights to an Earth-based corporation which in turn had sold shares to prospective colonists. Most of these had been recruited from northwestern Europe and been plunked down here to make a new life for themselves.

 

The lack of dry land had restricted the settled areas to a few large islands, which the colonists had enlarged with a system of levees and pumps. Agriculture was the predominant occupation, along with fishing. They had enough basic manufacturing capability to maintain a reasonable tech level and enough exports to get the cash to buy the few necessary items they couldn’t make themselves. After two hundred years the population had grown to a couple of million.

 

And somewhere down there might be the clues they needed to complete their mission—or a trap that could be sudden death.

 

Five hours after making orbit, Count Vorkosigan called her to say he was ready to land. Anny got her men together and headed for the hanger bay. She was taking third platoon under Ensign Milroy. Milroy was one of those rarities, a man who had come up through the ranks and eventually became an officer. He knew how enlisted men thought and Anny figured he would be a good man to ride herd on troopers who were pretending to be on shore leave but who were really still on duty.

 

She met Vorkosigan and his armsman by the shuttle and they went aboard. “Have they found anything yet, sir?” she asked.

 

“Nothing much,” the Count replied, strapping himself into an unused chair in the cockpit of the shuttle. The pilot didn’t seem happy about their presence, but made no objection. Anny found another seat and strapped in as well. When all was secure, the shuttle moved out of the hanger and dropped away from the _Raptor_.

 

This was Anny’s first real chance to see the ship from the outside. It had not been built on Barrayar, so its lines were quite different, although it was clearly a warship. Her eyes were drawn to an object which seemed to be tucked into a pocket in the ship’s belly. “What’s that, sir? A fast courier?” It did, indeed look like one. It was tiny for a jump-capable ship, but she could see the nacelles for the Neklin Rods.

 

“No,” said Vorkosigan, “Just something I had brought along as a contingency. But to elaborate on my answer to your other question, Mr. Vorsworth is still working on his task, although he promises me it should be complete before the end of the day. The sensor scans from the ship have so far revealed nothing of interest. I didn’t see any point in not moving ahead.”

 

Anny nodded, but privately suspected that the Count just couldn’t wait around any longer. The man had a nervous energy and hated inaction. Well, so did she. The shuttle fired its thrusters and nosed down toward the planet. From orbit the place looked like most inhabited worlds: dazzling white clouds, blue seas, hints of brown and green in spots. As they descended, though, the low-lying nature of Walcheren became more apparent. Huge areas of marshland subdivided into innumerable islands by rivers, streams, and the encroaching sea, covered large parts of the planet. Only tiny patches of higher ground appeared here and there as the shuttle passed over. The marshes had greens and browns but also a dusting of red areas which sort of reminded Anny of the un-terraformed parts of Barrayar. Signs of human habitation were rare and the night side had only a few pinpoints of light.

 

They moved back into sunlight and ahead of them appeared their destination: Vlissingen Island, a few thousand square kilometers of dry ground, home to about half the population and location of the capital city, which bore the same name as the island. As the shuttle slowed to land, Anny could see that a good chunk of the island had been reclaimed from the sea and the marshes by the levee system and more levees were under construction. The open land was subdivided into neat fields of growing crops. The divisions between the fields had that same red color as she’d noticed in the marshes. The city had no tall buildings, but numerous docks and wharfs around which clustered hundreds of small boats. The shuttle port was located on an artificial island connected to the mainland by a long embankment which doubled as a breakwater for the harbor. Only a few other shuttles were present—probably from the merchant ship which had preceded them here—but there were scores of air cars and lightflyers parked around the perimeter. Their shuttle circled once and then set down on one of the landing pads.

 

“Okay,” said Vorkosigan, unbuckling himself, “let’s go see what we can see. Your men ready, Anny?”

 

“Yes, sir. They know what not to talk about and Ensign Milroy and the sergeants will make sure they stay within supporting distance of us.”

 

They debarked and went through a rather perfunctory customs inspection. The locals let them carry their stunners, although their attitude implied that it was something only barbarians would do. They did hand out booklets with a synopsis of local laws and strongly suggested they read them on the bus ride to town. Several busses were waiting for them by the terminal. Anny noted approvingly that everything was clean and tidy.

 

The bus ride wasn’t nearly long enough to read the entire booklet, but Anny skimmed over it and found nothing alarming. She’d heard stories from some of the old timers about worlds that had ‘trap laws’ meant to snare unwary visitors for pointless violations and slap them with outrageous fines, but she saw nothing like that here.

 

“Look at those red flowers,” said Vorkosigan suddenly. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

 

Anny looked out of the bus and realized what all those red patches she’d seen from the air were. Red flowers, thousands and thousands of them, lining the roadway. “Yes, sir,” she agreed. “They’re really very striking.”

 

“Ekaterin would love them. I wonder if they’d grow on Barrayar?”

 

“Wouldn’t they have to be tested and approved? Can’t introducing new species to a world cause problems?”

 

“Oh sure. Lots of paperwork, too, I imagine. Still… I’ll have to think about that.”

 

The busses reached the center of town and let them off. The buildings were mostly of brick construction with steep tiled roofs. From what Anny had read, the area had a rainy season and a very brief winter, both fortunately past for this year. The streets were paved with brick, too. In fact, brick was used almost everywhere and the workmanship was very impressive. Different colored bricks were used to form mosaics and they’d even managed to make curving and spherical shapes. “I never would have thought of using brick for something like that,” said Vorkosigan, pointing to one especially ornate building.

 

“I guess clay is more common than stone or wood here,” said Anny.

 

Her troops dispersed, or at least they appeared to disperse. They would stay within a few blocks of her and the Count no matter where they went. Vorkosigan appeared to be content to play tourist and just wandered through the town, stopping here and there, chatting with local shop keepers, or anyone else who was willing to talk. They toured a couple of museums and the city hall. To her surprise there was an extensive ‘red light district’ and Vorkosigan, smirking, had kindly found another museum only a block away and spent several hours there, allowing Anny’s troopers to indulge themselves while staying within support distance. But they found nothing in the least suspicious.

 

“Uh, Milord,” ventured Roic at one point when they were alone. “You aren’t planning to do this like one of those adventure vids, are you?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You know the ones, the hero is trying to stop some evil plot against the Empire, but hasn’t got a clue what it is or who’s behind it. So he just makes himself really noticeable until the bad guys get nervous and try to kill him. If they’d just waited him out they could have gotten away with it, but by trying to kill him they give it all away.”

 

“Oh those,” laughed Vorkosigan. “I hadn’t considered that approach. Maybe I should.”

 

“I’d really rather you didn’t Milord,” said Roic earnestly.

 

“No, it would really upset Ekaterin—especially if they succeeded. So we’ll just have to find the bad guys some other way, eh?”

 

“Do you think there are any bad guys here, sir?” asked Anny.

 

“Doesn’t seem likely, does it? Well, we’ll keep looking for a few days and see what we can turn up. Let’s check out that hotel over there and see if they have rooms.”

 

Anny hadn’t expected to stay overnight, but in the end, they stayed for three days. Vorkosigan got her a very nice room for herself and treated her to a couple of meals that almost rivaled a Ma Kosti meal. All in all, it would have been a marvelous shore leave if they hadn’t been forced to stay on alert the whole time. But at least the extra time allowed her to rotate her other platoons down to the planet to give them some time off the ship, too. They toured the whole city and a good bit of the island, as well, but didn’t find anything that could be considered a clue. She half expected Vorkosigan to order her and Roic to start grabbing people for a fast-penta interrogation, but he did not.

 

On the third day they got a message from Alby that he’d finished his analysis and he’d like to go over it in person. Vorkosigan agreed that it was time to pull out and ordered the shuttle down to pick them up. On the way back to the shuttle port, he made a detour into a flower shop and bought a few of the red flowers he’d been admiring. He’d been impressed not just by their beauty, but by the fact that they didn’t make him sneeze. The locals called them water tulips and the shop owner cautioned the Count that he didn’t think they would grow well off Walcheren, but if they could survive on his home planet, then watch out because they would spread like weeds. Vorkosigan had them put in a sealed container and took them with him.

 

Back aboard the _Raptor_ they met in Vorkosigan’s cabin with Alby, Colonel Vorfannon and Captain Rasmussen. “So what do you have for us, Lieutenant?” asked the Count when they were all seated.

 

“Nothing very exciting, sir, I’m afraid. But I don’t think that Walcheren is the prize.” Vorkosigan nodded and made a _go on_ gesture. “I took the list of suspicious ships that Portmaster Thorne gave us and slightly less than half of them passed through here. But only one of them stopped here and then it moved on, too, and never returned here again. It was a fairly small ship, too, and according to the records I found did not discharge much cargo. Not enough to set up any sort of base.”

 

“I see,” said the Count. “Captain, have your sensor sweeps turned up anything?”

 

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Heat and energy sources are all where there are known habitations or from surface ships we could spot. Nothing to indicate any concealed base.”

 

“The EnBees had massive bases on Novo Paveo that were completely shielded from sensors,” pointed out Anny. They’d learned that the hard way.

 

“True,” admitted Rasmussen. “But that took engineering and construction on a huge scale. Do we have any reason to believe our quarry had those sorts of resources?”

 

“No,” said Vorkosigan. “We have to assume that the _ba’s_ confederates would have taken the most inconspicuous approach possible. Employing thousands of workers with heavy equipment would have been far too noticeable. There’s nothing here to indicate anything like that took place. And with the majority of the population concentrated in just a couple of spots, any new community springing up with a thousand infants would be pretty damn conspicuous, too.” He sighed.

 

“So where do we…?” began Rasmussen, but he was interrupted by a ping on his wristcom. “Yes? What? All right, I’ll be right there. Excuse me,“ he said, getting up from his chair. “I’ll be back shortly.” He left the compartment.

 

“I believe the Captain was going to ask where we go from here?” said Vorkosigan. “A good question. The next system from here is Piacine and there are three exits from there.”

 

“The Cetagandans never made it that far, did they, sir?” asked Anny.

 

“Not as far as we know. But we have no choice but to…”

 

Vorkosigan was cut off by a shrill alarm over the intercom system. “All hands! All hands! This is a bio-contamination alert! All hatches and bulkheads have been sealed. Remain where you are until further notice! Repeat! This is…” The message repeated several times before shutting off. A blue light was flashing over the hatch. Vorkosigan checked it and confirmed that it was locked shut. Roic appeared with the Count’s vac suit, but he refused to put it on. Anny noticed that the soft sigh of the ventilation system was missing. Sealed off? She used her wristcom to contact First Sergeant Nikolaidis and he confirmed that they were all locked into their barracks area.

 

“Damn, what’s going on?” said Alby. He looked a bit green around the gills.

 

“Let’s find out,” said Vorkosigan. He attempted to reach Captain Rasmussen, but it took nearly ten very frustrating minutes to get through to him. “What’s happening, Captain?”

 

“I wish I knew!” came back the reply. “One of my crewmen is dying and it looks very much like some sort of bio-weapon!”

_  
_

**Chapter 5**

 

They remained sealed in Miles’ cabin for six very long hours. Captain Rasmussen was not answering any questions and neither were any of the rest of the crew. He was getting very frustrated, but finally, an officer came and released them from the room and took them to sick bay. Rasmussen, the ship’s surgeon, and the second officer were waiting for them. They all looked grim. They led them to an isolation compartment. Visible through the window was the body of a man, obviously very dead. His face was discolored and contorted horribly. “Who was he?” asked Miles. “And what happened?”

 

“Flight Officer Galbone,” answered Rasmussen. “One of the shuttle pilots who went down to Walcheren. As for what happened…” he nodded to the surgeon, a man named Hertwick.

 

“He came to me shortly after you all returned to the ship,” said Hertwick, “complaining of a bad headache. I’d barely started examining him when he went into convulsions. His temperature was extremely high and he was having trouble breathing. He was dead within twenty minutes.”

 

“I got here just before the end and immediately summoned Commander Velucci,” said Rasmussen. “She ordered the bio-alert.”

 

“Anyone else affected?” asked Miles.

 

“No. No one. But we think we know why.” He nodded to the surgeon again.

 

“It was a virus, a very nasty little bio-engineered virus. I managed to isolate a few samples before they broke down. Classic bio-warfare stuff: do the job and then self-destruct. I’ve got one of my gene sequencers working to unravel it now. That will probably take a few days. As for why no one but Galbone was affected… well, I won’t know for sure until I have the data on the virus, but there is one unique thing about Galbone: he’s a Cetagandan.”

 

“What?” exclaimed Colonel Vorfannon. “A Cetagandan? You have Cetagandan crewmen?” He looked at Rasmussen in outrage.

 

“Not according to our records,” said Rasmussen. “According to them, he’s from some planet out past Zouave Twilight. But the Doctor assures me he’s a Cetagandan. A _ghem_ to be precise.”

 

“Don’t you take cell samples of your men? That should be standard procedure!” The ImpSec man was turning pink.

 

“We do,” said Rasmussen. “Doctor?”

 

Hertwick shook his head. “We are definitely going to have to update out screening procedures. We’re victims of our own routine.”

 

“What do you mean?” asked Miles.

 

“Where do we normally take cell samples from?”

 

“Blood, skin… oh…”

 

“Yes, exactly. Everyone does it that way. It’s quick and easy and relatively painless. So if you wanted to defeat such a system…”

 

“Fake blood? Fake skin?”

 

“Not fake, but altered somehow,” said Hertwick. “While I was trying to save Galbone, I was taking samples of everything and imagine my surprise when I was getting these Cetagandan readings. I checked them against his records and saw the discrepancy. So I tested his blood and his skin and guess what? They still match his records.”

 

“You’re saying he’s a Cetagandan _ghem_ except he has normal human blood and skin?”

 

“Apparently so. I haven’t had time to fully investigate this, you understand, but if I had to guess, I’d say that somehow when his blood cells—the white ones anyway, the red don’t matter—and when his skin cells are grown, somehow they are given a baseline DNA, while the rest of him retains the Cetagandan sequences. Don’t ask me how it’s done; that’s a job for someone with a lot more letters after their name than I have.”

 

“A spy,” said Miles. “Someone engineered to escape standard gene scans. Ingenious.”

 

“Ingenious!” cried Vorfannon. “This is disastrous! The Cetas could be sneaking their agents into… into… _everywhere_! My Lord, we have to get this information back to headquarters as soon as possible!”

 

“Yes, Colonel, we do,” said Miles. “But Doctor, you also seem to be implying that the virus that killed Mr. Galbone is specifically designed to affect only Cetagandans?”

 

“That would be one conclusion, yes. The fact that no one else has been affected…”

 

“Are you sure no one else has been affected? What’s the incubation period? Are all the rest of us going to drop dead a few hours from now? How is it contracted?” A chill went through him. _Not again!_

 

“I won’t have all those answers until we get the results from the sequencer. But as for how it was contracted, that I think I know. I found the remains of some plant material caught in Galbone’s mucous membranes. They appeared to be pollen spores. I found intact ones caught in his clothing and ran an analysis. There was more of the virus inside the pollen, rendered inert somehow. Apparently the pollen is inhaled and releases the virus into the body. It’s not something that would set off an alarm with our usual bio-scans.”

 

“Once the Doctor had identified the vector, I went to work,” said Commander Velucci. “I found those pollen spores all through the ship. Everyone who came up from the planet was covered with them. But they seem to break down pretty quickly and the virus dies with them.”

 

“Galbone went down with the first shuttle,” said Rasmussen. “He would have been exposed three days ago. So if this was going to affect everyone, you should all be dying by now—and the rest of us later.”

 

Miles immediately felt feverish and his head was starting to ache and… No, no, it was just his overactive imagination. _Right?_

 

“I think we know what happened to those three scouting missions that vanished, sir,” said Alby.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh, to hell with that, My Lord!” cried Vorfannon. “We have to get this information about the spies home!”

 

“Yes, presently, Colonel,” said Miles absently. “Plant pollen, you say, Doctor? Clearly some plant from Walcheren.”

 

“Clearly. But I’m not a botanist, so don’t ask me which one.”

 

“Huh, if this was meant as a trap—and it certainly seems like it was—then it would have to be something common… something that would be sure to infect any _ghem_ who came here… _Those bloody flowers!”_

 

“Flowers?”

 

“Roic! Go fetch the flowers I bought for Ekaterin!”

 

“Yes, Milord!” His armsman was back in two minutes with the packaged water tulips. Doctor Hertwick took them gingerly to his lab and set about extracting some samples without breaking open the package. They all waited impatiently as he transferred his sample into a viewer. An image of a spiky ball came onto a monitor and then a moment later the screen split and a second ball appeared. The two looked the same to Miles.

 

“A match?” he inquired.

 

“Seems to be,” said Hertwick. “I’ll have to open up one of the spores and see if the virus is there, but I suspect it is.”

 

“Those flowers are _everywhere_ down there, sir,” said Anny.

 

“The florist said they will spread like weeds. Quite a trap.”

 

“Wouldn’t… wouldn’t this be a threat to the _ba’s_ people, too, Milord?” asked Roic.

 

“Not necessarily. If it was carefully crafted—and I’m sure it was—it wouldn’t affect the _haut_. And they must surely have an antidote in any case. No, this was just set up to ambush anyone on their trail. I rather suspect the three missing ships are adrift somewhere between the jump points leading to Piacine, all with dead crews.”

 

“We must have samples of this plant, My Lord,” said Vorfannon eagerly. “We could grow them around any high security area! Make sure those damn spies can’t slip in!”

 

“Might be a tad awkward if we start killing Cetagandan diplomatic personnel by mistake, Colonel. And the florist said the plants didn’t do well off Walcheren. Wouldn’t surprise me if the person who created this variant set that up deliberately to prevent accidents. Probably made them dependent on some other unique element in the Walcheren biosphere to survive. But we’ll send all the information off to ImpSec’s bio-boffins. I’m sure they will be thrilled.” He turned to Rasmussen. “So when did Flight Officer Galbone become a member of your crew, Captain?”

 

“About six months ago. He has a spotless record.”

 

“I’m sure. But six months… hmmm, that’s before the Cetas asked me to take on this mission, but probably well after they started thinking about asking me. And they know me well enough to guess I’d want the Dendarii involved. Plenty of time to get Galbone—and probably a few more on other Dendarii ships—planted. To keep an eye on me and make sure I reported everything back accurately. That’s pretty damn scary. Gotta change my habits. And you might want to inform Admiral Quinn about this.”

 

“Yes, of course. I’m… sorry about this, Vorkosigan.”

 

“Don’t be—at least not for my sake. If Galbone hadn’t had the misfortune to be here we would never have found out about this. It’s the first break we’ve gotten.”

 

“But what sort of break, sir?” asked Anny. “What does this tell us?”

 

“Well, it tells us that we are on the right track. This was surely done by the _ba_ or its confederates to destroy or at least discourage any pursuers. I think we can also rule out Walcheren itself as the final destination. The trap would be like an enormous ‘look here’ sign once it had claimed a few victims. So our quarry must lie beyond here. Captain, you can set your course for Piacine. Oh, and since we’ve all completely blown our cover to the Doctor and Commander Velucci here, I’d be obliged if you’d swear them to secrecy, too.” He grinned at Rasmussen.

 

“Uh, yes, right away.”

 

“But Vorkosigan!” exploded Vorfannon.

 

“Gently, Colonel, let’s go back to my stateroom and discuss this.” He led them back to his quarters and had Roic serve coffee. He felt like he could use something considerably stronger, but he made do with coffee.

 

“Count Vorkosigan,” said Vorfannon, “we must abandon this mission and return to Barrayar with the news of these engineered spies!”

 

“Colonel, this mission is the only reason we even know about the spies. And while I agree that the news is important, I don’t believe it is that urgent.”

 

“Urgent? It’s more than urgent!”

 

“Really, Colonel? I’m afraid I don’t see it that way. This may have been going on for years, so I don’t see that a few more weeks or months wait will make much difference.”

 

“But the Cetas could have agents all over the place! Inside our security! I’m ImpSec, My Lord and I have a duty to…”

 

“I was ImpSec myself, Colonel, as you well know. I worked with Simon Illyan for more than ten years and I know how things work, so calm yourself. While it may be true that the Cetagandans can disguise themselves so they don’t show up as Cetagandans, that does not mean they can magically turn themselves into Barrayarans. This trick will not allow them to penetrate ImpSec or the higher levels of the military or government. Our background checks are far too thorough for that. I cannot think of any plot that these spies could carry out in the short term that would be catastrophic. We, on the other hand, have our first real clue to follow and I don’t intend to abandon the search at this point.”

 

“My Lord, I must protest this decision in the strongest terms! This mission is not that vital!”

 

“The Emperor himself assigned this mission to me and appointed me as His Voice. He clearly feels that it is that vital. So that is my decision, Colonel. We will go ahead. If you wish, we can leave a coded message here to be transmitted home on the next ship that passes that way…”

 

“We can’t trust something like this to a foreign message service!” sputtered Vorfannon. “But if you’d let me use the…”

 

“No.”

 

“But My Lord!”

 

“Or you can stay here and wait for the next ship and deliver the message in person. One of the Dendarii ships that’s trailing us will probably show up in a few weeks and I’ll give you a set of orders to have them deliver you to the nearest Barrayaran consulate. You can get the message home securely from there. ”

 

“I can’t abandon you, My Lord! General Allegre specifically ordered me not to let you out of…” Vorfannon clamped his mouth shut. “I have to accompany you.”

 

“All right then. We go on.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next two months were tedious and boring for Alby. They pressed on to the planet Piacine and did not find anything there. Three jump routes branched out from that system and they explored those one after the other to the limit that their assumed schedule for the kidnapped babies allowed. This involved six more solar systems but again they found nothing obvious. Four of them would need a closer look, but Count Vorkosigan wanted to do a quick survey first.

 

Alby didn’t get to go ashore on any of them; he was busy hacking and sorting and analyzing. For two of the planets he didn’t even have to do any hacking; the traffic data was there for the taking on the public information nets. But his analysis wasn’t turning up anything at all. Many of the ships on Portmaster Thorne’s list came through these systems, but there was no pattern that he could discern. Nothing at all suspicious or revealing in their movements. Just routine trading or passing through to somewhere else. It appeared to be a dead end.

 

The only things of interest during the period was that the ship’s doctor confirmed that the virus was designed to attack only Cetagandan _ghem_ and that it was definitely carried in the red water tulips. That whole thing bothered Alby. Not just the cold-blooded ruthlessness of the trap, but the fact that it had been there at all. Considering how little progress this expedition had made (that is to say none at all) wouldn’t it have been safer to skip the trap completely? Its mere existence would have confirmed to any pursuer that they were on the right track. Once tripped it became a huge ‘follow me’ sign—assuming you could survive it, of course. But sooner or later someone would survive it and more hunters were bound to follow. _I guess we just haven’t followed far enough._

 

And he didn’t have enough information to really condemn the trap as a bad idea. Maybe it had been left dormant somehow so it wouldn’t kill any random _ghem_ who might drop by. Perhaps it was only activated after the _ba_ was caught. Its confederates, thinking pursuit was close at hand, might have activated it somehow, perhaps in blind panic. Maybe they weren’t as clever as they thought they were. That was a pleasant thought. _But so far they’ve been clever enough to stymie us, haven’t they?_

 

Everyone was getting frustrated and Colonel Vorfannon was starting to win some converts to the idea of giving up on this and heading home. Even the Count appeared to be having some doubts.

 

 _Maybe they_ were _planning to transfer the uterine replicators to another ship. Maybe the base is a lot farther away._ But then why the trap on Walcheren? It would just serve to confirm the hunters were on the right track. If the base was a hundred jumps farther on, then the trap made no real sense—unless there are more traps farther along, of course. Maybe a whole series of them, biting the pursuers at every step until they got sick of it and gave up. Except the Cetas wouldn’t give up and they had to know that. Damn, there were just too many questions!

 

Alby growled and rubbed his eyes and shut off his comconsole and flopped on his bunk. He’d attacked the problem from a dozen different angles, but none of them led anywhere. There were too many variables, too many gaps in his data, too damn many worlds in the nexus! And too many theories and guesses. The only hard facts they had were that the _ba_ and the babies were caught on Graf Station and that they were headed to Xerxes next. And the trap on Walcheren.

 

The trap. The damn trap kept grabbing his thoughts. It didn’t make any sense! It would just serve to lure the pursuers onward, not dissuade them from pursuing! What had they been thinking?

 

_Lure? Lure the pursuers?_

 

Alby jerked upright on his bunk.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

“What is it, sir?’ asked Anny as she entered Count Vorkosigan’s stateroom.

 

“I don’t know. Alby said he’d had an idea and wanted to talk with you and me. Ah, here he is now.” Alby came in behind her and he looked very excited. “Have you got something?”

 

“I think so, sir! Well, maybe. I’m not sure, but…” Alby was babbling the way he did when his brain got way ahead of his mouth.

 

Vorkosigan held up his hand. “Have a seat. Have some coffee and tell us about it.” Alby sat down and Anny did as well, but neither of them took the coffee Roic offered. Alby was fidgeting in his seat.

 

“Well, sir, I’ve been gnawing at this thing for weeks…”

 

“I know you have.”

 

“… and the thing I couldn’t get my head around was the trap on Walcheren. I mean as subtle and nasty as the trap itself was, the mere fact that it was there just seemed… clumsy.”

 

“Clumsy?” said Anny. “I’m still having nightmares about it!”

 

“You mean the way it was a clear signal that we were on the right trail?” asked Vorkosigan. “Yes, I worried about that myself.”

 

“Yes, sir, exactly. But what if it wasn’t a trap to try and _stop_ pursuit, but a lure? A lure to send us off in the wrong direction?”

 

Vorkosigan’s eyebrows went up. “Go on.”

 

“We know the _ba_ was headed to Xerxes, the ship was going there next and there was no other choice for it. From there, the Cetagandans have told us it was going through Mardonius and then on to Walcheren. The trap on Walcheren seems to confirm that. But what if the trap was there just to entice us onward? Convince us the base lay ahead somewhere? “

 

“As it’s done!” Vorkosigan looked excited.

 

“The trap kept us looking forward, sir. But what if we need to look _behind_? What if the route to the _ba’s_ base branched off _before_ Walcheren, sir?”

 

“Yes, perhaps! It wouldn’t be at Walcheren because the trap focuses too much attention there. But before… Mardonius, perhaps?”

 

“That’s what I was thinking, sir,” said Alby.

 

“But didn’t the Cetas search Mardonius?” asked Anny.

 

“They did, but not too thoroughly,” replied the Count. “There was a clear trail that led on to Walcheren. Maybe too clear a trail!”

 

“I’m guessing it’s not _on_ Mardonius, sir,” said Alby. “There would be too much danger of someone stumbling on it accidentally. They’d want somewhere that no one would ever go.”

 

“You’re thinking an undiscovered wormhole jump from the Mardonius system?”

 

“Yes, sir. When I came up with this idea I went back and checked Portmaster Thorne’s list and there are five ships that passed through Graf Station and Xerxes that never reached Walcheren but are _not_ listed on Mardonius’ records. Well, actually there were only two ships, but one made two trips and the other three. And each of those ships return through Graf Station a few months later. So they disappear somewhere between Xerxes and Walcheren and then reappeared later. I never bothered to really look at the Mardonius records because we _knew_ that wasn’t the place.”

 

“Yes, always the danger of trusting other people’s intel. When did those ships pass through?”

 

“Around ten years ago, sir.”

 

“Vorkosigan nodded. “The timing is right.”

 

“Of course the undiscovered branch-off doesn’t have to be at Mardonius, it could be at one of the intermediate deep-space jump points in between Mardonius and Xerxes or Walcheren.”

 

“True, although multi-branch wormholes jumps are far more common in star systems than between them. I think we’ll check Mardonius, first.”

 

“But how are we going to find an unknown wormhole, sir?” asked Anny.

 

Vorkosigan smiled. “You wondered what that other ship attached to the _Raptor_ was, didn’t you?”

 

 

 * * *

 

 

“It’s definitely there, sir,” said Commander Berens. “The readings are firm. And Lahn’s Theorem predicts that a new wormhole ought to have developed here sometime in the last twenty or thirty years. No way to know where it goes, of course.”

 

Miles nodded at the man on the monitor. “Good work, Commander. Pass my compliments on to your team. When do you think you’ll be able to make a jump?”

 

Berens frowned. “I’d like to take some more readings from different positions, sir. An unplotted wormhole is nothing to fool around with. I know you are in a hurry, but if you could give me another week…”

 

“Take as much time as you need, Commander. I appreciate the risk you and your crew are taking. Do this as safely as you can.”

 

The man sighed in relief. “Thank you, sir. I’ll try and be as quick as I can.”

 

“Good. Talk to you later.” Miles cut the connection and leaned back in his chair and smiled. Success. He’d had a hell of a time convincing the Admiralty to lend him one of their precious survey teams—especially when he couldn’t tell them what he wanted it for—but he’d suspected all along that he might need it. The specially equipped ship with its highly-trained team of experts was used to find new wormhole jumps. And they’d just found one.

 

Of course, they weren’t the discoverers. Someone else had found it years ago—they just hadn’t told anyone about it.

 

They had returned to the Mardonius system a few weeks earlier. They had not announced their presence (the locals didn’t even keep a traffic buoy at the jump points) and had turned loose the _Pathfinder_ to begin its search. Miles had felt bad about keeping the survey team confined to their ship this whole time, but the Admirals had insisted on it. _Secrecy, security, stupidity._ The surveyors had nosed around, taking readings with their special sensors, and finally zeroed in on a patch of space a few hundred million kilometers on the opposite side of the star from the known jump points. Miles was certain it would lead to the _ba’s_ base.

 

His smile faded. Now he had a decision to make. He could simply call it a day and go home. He was confident enough in this find and this conclusion that he could turn it over to Dag Benin with a clear conscience and let the Cetas take it from here.

 

Or he could go on and make sure.

 

He’d really like to make sure. It would be embarrassing if he turned out to be wrong, and he _really_ didn’t want to have to come back out here. He found that he missed his wife and children terribly. He wanted to go home. And as he saw it, the quickest way home was straight ahead. Find the base, confirm what it was, and then get the hell out.

 

So they waited. Commander Berens took ten days before he was satisfied. Miles was on the bridge of the _Raptor_ to watch _Pathfinder’s_ jump. “I hope they make it back all right,” he muttered to no one in particular.

 

“The problem,” said Captain Rasmussen, “is that if they don’t come back, we won’t know if there was an issue with the jump itself, or if there was a trap waiting for them at the other end. I have to tell you that I can’t justify risking my ship by trying to go after them.”

 

“I understand,” said Miles gravely. “If I get these men killed then we’re done.” The thought of doing that rubbed Miles every wrong way imaginable. But there wouldn’t be any other choice. He prayed to every god he’d ever heard of that Berens and his men made it back.

 

“There they go,” said the sensor operator. Miles looked at the display, but there was nothing to see. _Pathfinder_ had jumped.

 

“You might as well go back to your cabin, Mr. Bothari,” said Rasmussen. “Even if everything goes perfectly it will probably be six or eight hours before they try to jump back.”

 

“Yes, you’re right, Captain. Keep me informed if anything happens, please.” He did go back to his cabin. Tried to take a nap, tried to eat, but spent most of his time pacing nervously. Naturally, he’d just managed to doze off when Rasmussen commed to tell them _Pathfinder_ was back.

 

“Commander Berens says that there is a solar system at the other end,” reported Rasmussen. “He took some passive scans of the place and there is a habitable world. Looks like we’ve hit the jackpot.”

 

“Thank God,” said Miles. “Once they are docked, let’s meet and see what they’ve found.”

 

It took another half-hour before _Pathfinder_ was tucked in beneath _Raptor_ and Commander Berens joined them in the conference room. Miles made the introductions. “Sorry we had to keep you cooped up in there all this time, Commander.”

 

“No problem, sir,” said Berens, although the weary look on his face made it clear that it had been a bit of a problem.

 

“Well, now that everyone knows you’re here I think we can relax the restrictions and let your people stretch their legs a bit. With your permission, of course, Captain?” He looked to Rasmussen.

 

“Certainly. They can have access to the same spaces as your troopers.”

 

“I will want a guard posted on the docking tube to the _Pathfinder_ at all times. Captain Payne, can you take care of that?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Good. So show us what you’ve got, Commander.”

 

“Certainly, sir.” He activated a holo display which showed the newly discovered—no, newly revealed—star system. “The jump was straightforward. I must say it is a whole lot less nerve-wracking when you _know_ someone’s been through there before. We popped through and looked around—passive sensors only. There was nothing we could spot near the jump point. No sensor platforms, no traffic buoy.”

 

“That seems a little strange,” said Colonel Vorfannon. “You’d think they’d want a warning if anyone popped in.”

 

“Maybe,” said Miles. “It’s becoming pretty clear that they are depending on stealth and being inconspicuous for their security. Any sort of buoy at the jump point would tip off an intruder that _someone_ was here. Commander, what else did your sensors scans show?”

 

“We got as good readings on the planet as we could passively, sir. An oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, temperatures in the habitable range, although a bit chilly overall. Gravity a tad over one standard gee—almost the same as Barrayar. Oceans, ice caps at the poles. Looks pretty good from what we could see.”

 

“Energy readings? Signs of habitation?”

 

“Nothing at all, sir. From the distance we were at, small stuff wouldn’t show, but there aren’t any fusion plants or industry or vid broadcasts going on there. Unless it’s well shielded, which is possible.”

 

“I see,” said Miles. “Of course there is the real possibility that even if this is the _ba’s_ base there’s no one here now. With the failure of the plot, its confederates may have just given up the whole idea and run for it.” He paused and then thumped his hands on the table. “Well! There’s only one way to find out. Gentlemen, let’s go see for ourselves.”

 

 

 

**Chapter 6**

 

They slipped into the star system as carefully and quietly as they could. The _Pathfinder_ crew lent _Raptor_ a jump pilot for the first transit. Alby watched the whole thing from the comconsole in his quarters. He had put the time waiting for the survey crew to complete their jobs to good use and he’d finally managed to break into the _Raptor’s_ tactical net without getting caught (he hoped.)

 

He told himself that it wasn’t just his wounded pride that demanded he try again. It seemed likely that Anny and her troops might have to head down to whatever they found on the other side of the wormhole and he wanted her to have every possible advantage when she did. He touched a control and split the screen and monitored the data flow while he watched the bridge crew doing their thing. It looked like he had done everything properly. He didn’t think anyone would notice how he’d diverted a copy of the feed unless they were looking very carefully. He typed some more and confirmed that the information would reach the suits of battle armor without them sending any tell-tale data back the other way. Everything looked good… wait what was that? A bit of code caught his eye and he focused in on it. What was…? Oh, okay. He recognized what it was now. Their Barrayaran armor had a similar system but… huh, he wasn’t sure he liked _that_ feature. Well, easy enough to fix. He did some typing.

 

By the time he was done, the ship had secured from the jump. _Pathfinder_ was sent off to see if there were any other wormholes in the system and a very heavily stealthed assault shuttle was sent toward the inhabited planet for a closer look. _Raptor_ drifted inward slowly, silent as a tomb.

 

They approached the planet with the same level of caution that Alby had used to break into the tactical net, so it took a few days. If their quarry was down there, they didn’t want to let them know they’d been found. There was no way of knowing how they might respond. The shuttle went into a low orbit and swept around the planet, pole to pole, peering down passively with sensors and telescopes. _Raptor_ swung around at a much higher altitude and waited. Finally, the shuttle rendezvoused with its mother ship and they met to discuss what had been found.

 

“There are definitely people down there, sir,” reported the shuttle commander. “But not much else. Not on the surface anyway.” The Dendarii officer brought up images of the planet on the holo display and started pointing things out. “You can see that the ice caps extend pretty far out from the poles. Except for a zone a few thousand klicks wide around the equator, the place is damn chilly. The equator is comfortable enough, though, and with the very slight axial tilt it probably stays that way most of the year. But the only sign of habitation we found was right here.” The man stopped the motion of the display and focused in on one area near a large lake almost exactly on the equator. It was heavily forested, but in a few clearings there were some buildings and what appeared to be people moving around. He switched to infra-red and the people stood out more prominently. “We could count a few hundred for sure, but there were probably more we couldn’t see through the trees—not without using active sensors. Notice the farm land over here.” He pointed to another area close by. “Looks to be some fishing happening on the lake, too.”

 

“Not quite what I was expecting,” said Count Vorkosigan, frowning at the image.

 

“What were you expecting, sir?” asked Anny.

 

“I’m not really sure. A miniature replica of the Celestial Gardens, maybe. This all looks rather… rustic.”

 

“There are some energy emissions,” continued the officer. “Like from hand-held devices or comconsoles, but nothing larger. There’s no fusion plant, unless it’s very cleverly shielded. We did spot some things which looked like solar collectors. But the structures look like they were constructed of the local wood.”

 

“Huh. That’s… odd. If you could count a few hundred then there might be six or eight hundred all told. That’s a lot more than I would have guessed. Where did the _ba_ find that many people it could trust? And why so many? One care-giver for each baby? And conditions that are certainly far more primitive than a haut would want. Strange.”

 

“Maybe you were right earlier, when you said that the _ba’s_ confederates gave up and fled, sir,” suggested Alby. “Maybe these are just opportunists who moved in after they moved out.”

 

“Possibly…”

 

“There’s no suggestion of any planetary defenses or significant armaments,” said Rasmussen. “It seems you would be able to land and investigate without much risk. Even if these people have some way to flee, they won’t be able to get past us up here.”

 

“You’ll have to be very wary of any biological weapons, though, sir,” said Colonel Vorfannon. “On Walcheren there was something to kill _ghem_. Maybe here there’s something to kill everyone else.”

 

“True…”

 

“We could send down a drone,” suggested Commander Velucci. “It could collect air and soil samples to check for dangers. That might not find everything, but it ought to find anything that could get through battle armor. If we don’t find anything then you ought to be safe enough if you stayed in your armor.”

 

“Yes.” Vorkosigan continued to stare at the display and drum his fingers on the table for several minutes.

 

“All right!” he said finally. “We can’t learn anything more without going down there. Commander, please send down your drone. Captain Payne, get your troops prepared. Captain Rasmussen, have the shuttles ready, please. Let’s go and see what we’ve found.”

 

 * * *

 

Anny studied her tactical display as the assault shuttle neared the surface. They were still refraining from using active sensors, so the display couldn’t show her much except for the local topography. They were landing nearly twenty kilometers from the settlement and as far as they could tell, there was no one in the vicinity.

 

Commander Velucci’s drone had found nothing the least bit harmful, so they had come down. But everyone, including Count Vorkosigan, was sealed up tight in their battle armor and they would stay that way until they were absolutely sure. Colonel Vorfannon had not thought to bring any battle armor for himself and been forced to remain aboard the ship—much to his annoyance and the Count’s obvious delight. Poor Roic didn’t have the powered armor either and Vorkosigan had ordered him to stay behind, too.

 

“Touch-down in thirty seconds,” announced their pilot.

 

“Stand by!” commanded Anny. She made ready to slap her harness release and all her troopers did likewise. She was excited—and confident. All this investigating and spying and snooping business had felt very strange to her. But _this_ she knew! Put her in charge of a company of assault troopers about to land on a hostile target and there was no one who could do the job better!

 

The shuttle lurched slightly as it landed and then the rear hatch was swinging open. Anny released the harness and led the way out. “Let’s go! Get the perimeter set up!” First Platoon, under Lieutenant Vorkins, thundered out after her. The shuttle carrying Second Platoon, commanded by Eric Vorgard, was landing a hundred meters away and moments later those troopers were deploying as well. Third Platoon, under Milroy, was still in orbit as a reserve.

 

In less than two minutes the area was secured—by the book. Count Vorkosigan looked on approvingly. “Smartly done,” he commented.

 

“Thank you, sir. No contacts; should I send out the scouts?”

 

“Yes, let’s get moving. We’ve got a ways to go.”

 

Anny sent out her scouts; a half-dozen specially trained men with stealth systems in their armor. They vanished from her sight and her sensors almost immediately. They would form a skirmish line a kilometer ahead of the rest of the company and make sure they didn’t run into any surprises as they advanced. She waited until they were in position and then they all set out. They were in heavily wooded country with the land sloping up to a ridgeline that separated them from the long valley the settlement was in. It was going to take a couple of hours to get there. They left the shuttles behind along with Commander Velucci and a few techs who were going to do a more thorough study of the environment.

 

They moved through the forest quietly and alertly. The ‘trees’ were unlike any Anny had seen before, but they filled the ecological niche that tees did on most planets. They were tall and had branches and things like leaves that were even a nice shade of green. The underbrush was similar, too. Humans had found this again and again throughout the nexus: similar biological challenges produces similar results. The undergrowth was pretty dense in some spots, but it couldn’t seriously hinder a man in battle armor; they made steady progress.

 

There was plenty of wildlife, too, and they were constantly flushing out creatures from their cover. She had no idea what they were, but none of them tried to do anything but run. A couple of larger six-legged things paused to stare at them for a few seconds before galloping off. She expected to see birds or their equivalent, but saw nothing like that. The local sun peeked through the canopy from time to time. All in all, it was a pleasant place for a hike.

 

They crossed over the ridge and proceeded more slowly now. They were getting close. A few minutes later, one of the scouts came back and reported that he’d found something. They didn’t dare use their usual com systems so they were dependent on line-of-site com lasers, which didn’t carry far through the forest. He led Anny and Vorkosigan a few hundred meters forward and then pointed at the remains of a large animal. “Someone’s been hunting, sir. This was expertly skinned and butchered.” Anny had seen plenty of this in the Dendarii Mountains back home and agreed with the assessment.

 

“Maybe this is just a band of homesteaders,” muttered Vorkosigan.

 

They resumed the march, but now the scouts were only a few hundred meters ahead of them. They found more signs of habitation: a small shack, and an area that had been logged off. They went slower and slower; they were getting very close now. Finally one of the scouts signaled for a halt. They found cover and waited. Fifteen minutes went by and then she was summoned forward. Vorkosigan went with her.

 

“You need to see this, sir,” said the scout. “It’s… weird.” They crept along a narrow trail as silently as 250 kilos of battle armor would allow. The scout halted and then beckoned them forward to a spot where they could see out. Beyond the foliage was an open space ringed by log structures. In the space were several hundred people…

 

 _Children_.

 

A mob of children, boys and girls, maybe ten years old, were laughing and playing. Some were involved in games while others seemed to be doing gymnastic routines. There were other groups back among the buildings who appeared to be hauling wood or doing other chores. Anny used the magnifier on her armor’s optics to zoom in on some of them and she caught her breath. The children were… amazing. Handsome, beautiful, just perfect. Some, of both sexes, were stripped to the waist in their gymnastics and their physiques were as perfect as their faces. _Haut, they have to be haut children!_ As she scanned around she noticed a few adults among the kids. They looked very much like the images of the _ba_ she’d seen in Vorkosigan’s briefing documents. Slender… hairless…

 

“My Lord… Sir, what is this…?” she whispered. There was no need to whisper since her armor muffled any sound, but she couldn’t help it. “You said the children were rescued, sent back to their parents…?”

 

She looked at Vorkosigan and could see his expression through the helmet visor. He was staring intently and frowning.

 

“Sir?”

 

“Son… of… a… _Bitch!_ ” he exploded suddenly. “It wasn’t the first ship! It was the _second_! Oh bloody hell!”

 

“Sir? Sir? What are you talking about?”

 

Vorkosigan retreated a few steps from their vantage point and paced in a tiny circle. She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself. “The ship at Graf Station, it wasn’t the first! The bastards did it once before— _and they got away with it!_ They stole the _haut_ children and the Cetas thought it was an accident! Oh, hell, hell, _hell!_ ”

 

“Please, sir, I don’t understand.”

 

The Count stopped pacing and looked right at her. “Anny, everyone thought that the ship full of replicators that we found at Graf Station was the only one, but it wasn’t! The _ba_ had done it once before and it worked! It stole the children and brought them here and the Cetas were none the wiser. They thought they’d all been destroyed in a tragic accident!”

 

“But…”

 

“Of _course_ the Star Crèche would keep it a secret! Even an accidental loss of a Child Ship would be a terrible embarrassment. They’d hush it up as best they could. And since they’d have an exact record of the genomes of each lost child, they’d just cook up another batch and send them out.”

 

“But why would the _ba_ do it again?”

 

“I don’t know! Ambition? Hubris? Revenge? We’ll probably never know. But it knew that the Star Crèche would never believe _another_ accident! That was why it planted the false evidence implicating Barrayar! There needed to be someone else behind it! Oh that clever bastard!”

 

Anny’s brain was whirling, trying to absorb all this. Too complicated! But there was one thing that wasn’t complicated at all. Her gaze was drawn back the swarm of children. “So… so what do we do about this…?”

 

Vorkosigan turned and looked out as well. “I don’t know!” he hissed. “But they haven’t seen us… maybe we should pull back and think about…”

 

 A sudden ping in her helmet and a red blip on her tactical display yanked Anny’s attention away from the children. The scout cursed and snarled: “Thermal contact! It’s right on top of us, sir!”

 

And indeed it was. Anny slowly looked up. Looking down at her from a thick tree branch was the face of a little angel, surrounded by black curls. Wide, curious eyes met hers.

 

“Oh shit.”

 

 * * *

 

 

Miles looked up and saw the _haut_ child and shook his head. This was just getting better and better.

 

“I could stun her, sir,” said the scout trooper. Anny looked at him. She clearly wasn’t happy about that idea.

 

“Sir?”

 

“No… no… let’s… not.”

 

The girl suddenly looked out toward the clearing and gave an amazingly piercing call. All the kids stopped whatever they were doing and looked this way.

 

“What do we do, sir?” asked Anny.

 

Miles sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Let’s go and say hello.”

 

“Yes, sir. C Company! We’ve been spotted. Go active but take no other action. First Platoon, enter the clearing, Second Platoon, take covering positions. There is no, repeat _no_ , obvious threat. Fingers _off_ triggers, people!”

 

The tactical display in Miles’ helmet lit up with new data as the sensors in the armor went from passive to active. A much more detailed image of the surroundings appeared and hundreds of new contacts were added to the ones already there. _Must be about… a thousand of them now?_ Anny’s troopers were pushing through the brush into the open and Miles followed. The children just watched them, none exhibiting any fear at all.

 

“Vorkosigan, what’s happening?” It was Rasmussen. “You’ve gone active!”

 

“Yes, Captain. We’ve made contact here. No problem so far. You may as well go active, too, and pipe the data down to us.”

 

“ _Why_ have you made contact?” The man sounded annoyed.

 

“Seemed like the thing to do. The situation is not what we were expecting.”

 

“How so? Is it or is it not the _ba’s_ base?”

 

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

 

“Vorkosigan!” Miles switched off.

 

“Anny, can Ol’ Ironbritches tap into our sensors and video pickups?”

 

“No sir, thanks to… a mutual friend, he can’t unless we want him to.” She was smiling.

 

“Good. I don’t think I want him to.”

 

“Yes sir!”

 

More people were now spilling out of the buildings and joining the crowd watching them. Kids, nearly all of them just kids. _What the hell am I going to do?_ A taller figure, one of the _ba_ , approached slowly. Miles looked closely and saw that it was quite elderly. Checking around, he saw that all of the _ba_ were elderly. _Retirees? People who wouldn’t be missed?_ The _ba_ stopped in front of them and raised one hand.

 

“Greeting,” it said. “We are no danger to you. What are your intentions?”

 

_Good question. Really good question._

“We… are just looking around,” answered Miles. “Can I speak to the person in charge?”

 

The _ba_ had not been looking at him before, but now he focused in on him and frowned. “And you are?”

 

“My name is Vorkosigan. And you?”

 

“My name is not important. But Vorkosigan? Barrayaran?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“This is… unexpected. Do you mean to do us harm? We have many children here.”

 

“So we have seen. We mean no harm to you, but… we may have done some without meaning it. We need to talk.”

 

“Yes. Follow me.” The _ba_ turned and walked toward one of the larger buildings. Miles and Anny and some troopers followed. The children parted to let them pass. He stared at them as he went by. They were all as tall as he—even in his armor. They were only a few years older than his own children, maybe a year older than the crown prince.

 

“Sir?” said Anny. “Commander Velucci hasn’t found anything dangerous, but she strongly suggests we keep our armor sealed, and I agree.”

 

“Yes, understood.” Unfortunately she was right. They had taken these people by surprise, but they might well become desperate enough to try… anything.

 

They approached the building and Miles saw that even though it was made of simple materials, it was masterfully crafted and beautifully decorated, the wood intricately carved and painted. They went up a short flight of steps, the wood creaking under the weight of their armor. A pair of doors swung open and they went inside, Anny posting a few guards and taking her first sergeant in with them. The interior was even more elaborate with delicate fabric hangings and woven mats on the floor. They went down a corridor and the _ba_ rapped lightly on a door. They were admitted immediately.

 

Miles followed the _ba_ and saw the room held a large bed and another _ba_ lay upon it, propped up by many pillows. If the other _ba_ he had seen were elderly, this one was ancient. Its pale skin thin and translucent like parchment, its hands almost fleshless. Deep set, but alert eyes regarded him intently. Several of the children were there as well, obviously attendants. _Haut waiting upon ba! What would the Star Crèche say?_

 

He stood before the _ba_ and bowed slightly. “Miles Vorkosigan at your service. And you are?”

 

“In another life I was called Su’valdre,” replied the _ba_. Its voice was a bit shrill, but surprisingly strong. “But you can just call me Su. It’s simpler.”

 

“I once met another _ba_ with a thousand children in its charge,” said Miles. “A bit younger than yours. But I never learned its name.”

 

Su blinked and smiled slightly. “Very direct, you are. Well, rightly so. There is not much time to waste. That one’s name was Fu’laiche, though I doubt it died still bearing it. But Vorkosigan, would you be the son of the regent and viceroy?”

 

“The late regent and viceroy,” said Miles.

 

“My condolences. We get little news here.”

 

“I imagine not. But you certainly have some today.”

 

“Indeed. And not good news.”

 

“No. We need to talk.”

 

“Very well. I don’t suppose you’d accept the offer of tea?”

 

“I’m afraid not. We’ve been to Walcheren and sniffed its flowers.”

 

“Indeed? Can I assume that some among you found the smell… disagreeable?”

 

“One. We want no similar incident here.”

 

Su raised a hand a few centimeters and made a little _so be it_ gesture. “Then there is no use pretending this is some chance encounter. You would appear to hold every advantage Vorkosigan. What do you want from us?”

 

“First, I want some information. The children here, they come from the first hijacked Child Ship?”

 

“Yes. Where else?”

 

“You got away with that completely, you know? I only realized there had _been_ a first a few minutes ago. Why in the world did you try for a second?”

 

Su twitched its shoulders slightly. “Fu’laiche was in charge. It was very persuasive, very willful, very driven. I argued against it, but was overruled. It argued that we needed a greater diversity in the genome, but I think its anger with the Star Crèche had grown so great it simply wanted to keep hurting it. We originally planned for Fu’laiche to remain behind for a time to monitor the response of the Crèche to the loss of the first ship. To derail any pursuit or warn us if necessary. If the danger passed, it would eventually join us here and take charge. But when the first theft succeeded so completely, it could not resist the temptation to do it again. I suppose I should be angry with you, Vorkosigan, for I know you were instrumental in foiling the attempt—just as you were instrumental years ago in the Star Crèche itself. Oh yes, I recognize you. From Lisbet’s funeral!” There was anger in its voice and one hand crept a few centimeters toward an elaborate bracelet it wore on the other wrist, but fell back again. _Oh yeah, not getting out of this can! No way!_

 

Miles tilted his head. “I did what I thought best for my own people—just as you do. There was no malice either time.”

 

“No malice, you say. Then what brings you here?”

 

“Again I sought to serve my own people. A secure and complacent Cetagandan Empire would do that better than one frantic with fear. But I did not expect… this.” He gestured toward the _haut_ children.

 

“Secrecy was our only protection,” said Su. “That has been lost. We are at your mercy, Vorkosigan. What will you do?”

 

“I think I will… ask another question. Just what _are_ you trying to accomplish here? The haut Pel had her theories, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

 

Su looked away. “I doubt you would understand.”

 

“Try me.”

 

The _ba_ looked back at him. “You have visited the Celestial Gardens, the Capital. What did you think of them?”

 

“What can I say? Beautiful… impressive…” he shrugged. “Words fail.”

 

“How about: Ostentatious? Decadent? _Frivolous_ , perhaps?”

 

“Not my first choice of words, but yes, perhaps.”

 

Su shook its head. “We aspired to take the next step, to create the first post-humans. In some ways we were succeeding. But then what did we do with our creation? Isolate it! _Imprison_ it in gilded cages. Cages within cages! Cut off from the real world and smothered by luxury! Madness!” The _ba_ now had some color in its face and it was an alarming shade of pink. One of the children took its hand and made shushing noises. It calmed down and breathed deeply.

 

“My mistress…” began the _ba_ , but Miles interrupted.

 

“Dowager Empress Lisbet?”

 

“Yes. And before she was dowager. She understood the madness—at least partially. She saw the decadence, saw where it was leading us. But her vision was… imperfect. Her plan to distribute the genome to the governors, to introduce challenges and conflict, it was better than doing nothing, but it was… flawed.”

 

“Flawed? It was another form of madness!” said Miles angrily. “Progress by civil war?”

 

“Perhaps,” said Su. “I counseled her against that path, but she would not agree. And then she died, but the plan went on.” It eyed Miles closely. “Perhaps I should thank you for foiling that plan. But I cannot thank you for foiling Fu’laiche. Or for coming here now.”

 

“So your new plan is better? How so? Explain it to me.”

 

“You’ve seen it. Are they not magnificent?” He gestured to the children. “Not pampered! Not decadent! They grow their own food, they build their own shelter, they make their own clothes! Strong! Skilled! _Competent_! They will meet challenges and overcome them and pass that tradition on to their children. Children they will make themselves!”

 

Miles’ eyebrows shot up. “You will permit them to… breed? To introduce random chance into the next generation?”

 

“Yes! The Star Crèche has gone as far as it can with its… tinkering! Time to stir the mix again! Lisbet understood that, but she didn’t know how to make it happen. This is how! A dozen generations hence we shall _see_ which path is the wisest!” The _ba_ fell silent and shook its head sadly. “Or we would have, had you not come. I have answered your questions, Vorkosigan. Now tell me what you plan to do. Will you destroy us? Destroy them?”

 

“What do you mean destroy them?” said Anny Payne, breaking her silence. “We won’t harm your children!”

 

Su huffed out its breath. “So naïve. Didn’t you explain it to her Vorkosigan?”

 

Miles could barely bring himself to look her in the eyes. “Anny… Anny, this isn’t what I was expecting to find…”

 

“I know that sir! But all the children! This changes everything!”

 

“Maybe for us, but not for the Star Crèche.”

 

“What do you mean? Are you saying they will _kill_ the children? Why?”

 

“It… it’s like I was saying before. The haut ladies in the Star Crèche, when they thought the first Child Ship was lost, they would have made replacements. Exact replacements.”

 

“But… but so what? So they have two sets, _so what_?” Her eyes were searching… pleading.

 

“The plan,” said Su, chuckling in a horrible fashion. “Their plan. A place for everything and everything in its place. No room for extra pieces. No room for children raised and trained by rebels. No room, my dear.”

 

“They’ve planned out everything, Anny,” continued Miles. “Long range planning. Generations ahead. This generation is full.”

 

“Well then, someone else can take them! _We_ can take them!”

 

“No,” said the _ba_. “The Star Creche is utterly jealous of its creation. They would destroy worlds rather than let it slip out of their hands. Are you ready to go to war, woman, see millions of your own people die, for the sake of these children?”

 

Anny was shaking her head. Miles could see the tears in her eyes through the faceplate of her helmet. “Sir? Sir? I… I didn’t sign up for this!”

 

Miles slowly began to nod.

 

“I didn’t either.”

 

 * * *

 

Anny forced herself to calm down. Her armor was sending her worried alerts about her breathing and heart rate. All during the approach to the settlement she’d been bracing herself for possible combat with a band of fanatics, desperately trying to defend their base. But all they’d found was a group of happy children and their elderly teachers.

 

And now this! What were they going to do? She’d sworn an oath to obey her emperor. She’d lay down her life for him without hesitation. But slaughter helpless children? She activated the private com circuit to Vorkosigan’s armor. “Sir, we _can’t_! Please…”

 

“I know,” he replied. “There’s no question of _us_ doing it, Anny. That was never part of the job. But even if we don’t, the Cetagandans are sure to.”

 

“So what can we do?”

 

“Let me think a moment.” The little man closed his eyes.

 

“Well, Vorkosigan?” asked the _ba_. “What fate do you decree for us?”

 

The Count opened his eyes and looked at the _ba_. “Su’valdre.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I cannot turn back time. I cannot un-find this place. And I cannot restore your secrecy. Too many know of my mission, too many know where I have gone and what I have done. And too many of those are people outside my control. The news will leak out no matter what I may wish.”

 

“Then we are doomed.”

 

“Perhaps. I can’t give you back your secrecy, but there is something I can give you.”

 

“And what is that?”

 

“A head start.”

 

The _ba_ tilted its head.

 

“You planned this all out in exquisite detail, Su’valdre. I’m quite certain you have thought of every contingency. You must have a ship hidden here somewhere, a ship big enough for all of you. And I would be very surprised if you had not already scouted out a back door to leave this system, correct?” The _ba_ opened one of its hands and neither admitted or denied Vorkosigan’s statement. The Count nodded.

 

“I will do everything I can to keep the story contained. I think I can give you six months. Perhaps as much as a year. But eventually the Star Crèche will come. You had better be long gone before they do.”

 

“They will follow.”

 

“No doubt. But the nexus is vast and growing larger every day. Run and keep running. Run until you find somewhere you can hide and raise your children in peace.”

 

The _ba_ looked around its room. “We have done so much work here…”

 

“Consider it a challenge for your children. If they are worthy, they will prosper. In any case, I can give you no other choice.”

 

“No. There is no choice.”

 

“And every minute is precious. We will leave you now. Our ship will be gone within a day.”

 

“You have what thanks I can give you, Vorkosigan.”

 

The Count shook his head. “I will have to face a lot of criticism over this. Aside from all the shit this will generate between Barrayar and Cetaganda, some will say that I’ve planted another batch of potential enemies out there in the nexus. I don’t need _your_ thanks, Su’valdre, but be damn sure your children know who they owe their lives to! I stand before you speaking with the Voice of Emperor Gregor Vorbarra of Barrayar! Make sure they know what He said!”

 

“That much we will do,” said the _ba_. “Farewell.”

 

“And good luck to your kids. Come on Anny, let’s get out of here.”

 

“Yes, sir. _Thank you_ , sir.” She couldn’t describe the relief that was flowing through her. “Do you want me to have the shuttles come pick us up?”

 

“No, the fewer people who see this, the better. We’ll go back to them. Since we don’t need to keep secret now, we can make full use of our armor. Betcha we can do it in ten minutes!”

 

“Better than that, sir! C Company! We are heading back to the shuttles! Maximum speed!”

 

“Maximum, sir?” asked Lieutenant Vorkins over the com.

 

“You heard me! Let’s see what these things can do!”

 

They did it in eight minutes. Using anti-gravs and thrusters, the armor was like a pair of the fairy tale Seven-League Boots. They soared over trees and hills in long curving bounds. It was something they would never risk in a combat situation, but here, that didn’t matter. Anny was suddenly feeling so darn good she was laughing out loud. By the ten minute mark, they were aboard the shuttles and boosting to orbit.

 

“Mister…uh, Bothari,” said Commander Velucci once they were under way. “Even though we didn’t find anything dangerous down there, I’m going to insist on a surface decontamination for these shuttles and your people when we get back.”

 

“Yes. No sense in taking chances. Not now.”

 

“Very good, I’ll have things set up and waiting for us.”

 

“Vorkosigan!” An angry voice came over the com. “Why are you returning? Answer me, dammit!”

 

“Hello, Captain. Why are we coming back? We’re coming back because we are done here. Could you relay a message to _Pathfinder_ and have them rendezvous with _Raptor_? We’ll be leaving immediately.”

 

“Leaving? Done? Did you find the _ba’s_ base?”

 

“No.”

 

“But… I don’t believe…! What the hell is going on?” spluttered Rasmussen.

 

“I’ll talk to you later, Captain.” The Count broke the connection.

 

“He’s not going to believe you, sir,” said Anny over the private circuit.

 

“Of course not, but who cares? He gets paid whether he believes me or not. He’s got no horse in this race. But maybe I should authorize a little bonus for him so he keeps his mouth shut. His and his crew’s. Yeah, it might buy a little more time.” He sighed. “More expense. Gregor is not gonna be happy about this.”

 

“Do you really think he’ll be angry about… about sparing the children?” Anny wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to her question. She _liked_ the Emperor!

 

“No, he won’t be angry about that. But he is responsible for the whole Empire. It’s a heavy load and I’ve made it a little heavier, I’m afraid. Oh well. As they say: shit happens.”

 

“Yes sir, it certainly does.”

 

The shuttles matched orbits with _Raptor_ and then spent several minutes slowly rotating while a laser set to low power baked their hulls to a few hundred degrees to hopefully destroy any nasties they might have picked up. Then they edged into the hanger bay. Flexible plastic tunnels were attached to the airlocks. When the hatches opened, decontaminating chemicals were pumped inside and the armored troopers slowly made their way through the tunnels, one by one, being sprayed and scrubbed with more chemicals. Vorkosigan was the first one through, with Anny right behind. At least they would only require a surface decontamination, no need for the full thing.

 

When Anny was finished, she headed for the armory to get out of her armor. Vorkosigan was already there, just emerging from his suit. Like everyone, he was only wearing a skin-tight undergarment. He opened a locker beside the armor and pulled out his clothes.

 

“Anny! Anny, are you there? It’s Alby!” The sudden voice in her suit made Anny twitch.

 

“Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”

 

“Where’s Vorkosigan? I can’t reach him!” The alarm in Alby’s voice brought her to full alert.

 

“He’s right here, getting dressed.”

 

“Get him on the com!”

 

Anny opened her helmet visor. “Sir? Alby wants to talk to you. It seems urgent.”

 

“Really?” Vorkosigan pulled out his wristcom from a pocket. “Yes, Lieutenant? What is it?”

 

“Sir? Did you… did you give Captain Rasmussen any… orders?”

 

“Not in the last twenty minutes. Why? What’s going on?”

 

“Sir! I’m hooked into the tactical network. The ship is powering up its main weapons! And the targeting system is zeroed in on that settlement on the planet!”

_  
_

**Chapter 7**

 

 _H_ _oly Shit!_ Suddenly things made sense. Suddenly a _lot_ of things made sense!

 

“Anny! With me!” shouted Miles and he turned and sprinted for the hatch. He dashed down the corridor, right past a bewildered Roic whose plaintive _Milord_? barely reached him. He went up a companionway two steps at a time and yelled into his wristcom. “Alby! Can you break in and try to shut down those weapons?”

 

“Uh… I’ll try sir. We’re at extreme range and the ship is moving in, so we might still have a coupla minutes…”

 

“Do your best!” He reached the right deck and turned a corner, He could hear Anny’s heavy footfalls right behind. The hatch to the bridge was just ahead. A man in half-armor was standing guard. He looked alarmed—but certainly not by Miles.

 

“Hey! Stop! You can’t come in here!” He started to raise a weapon.

 

“Anny?” cried Miles.

 

Anny Payne stepped past him and grasped the Dendarii’s arms with her armored gauntlets. Half-armor was misnamed: it wasn’t even close to being half as powerful as full armor. She straightened and heaved, hurling the hapless man ten meters down the passageway. He slammed into a bulkhead and slid to the deck. Miles didn’t think he’d be getting up for a while.

 

He slapped the entry button next to the hatch, but it didn’t move. “Locked! Damn it!”

 

“Stand back, sir!” He looked and Anny was looming there and had her immense war hammer in both hands. He ducked aside as it swept downward. The pointed end smashed into the door frame and the entire hatch was torn loose from its tracks and crashed noisily to the deck. Anny moved through and Miles was right behind.

 

“What the hell?!” cried Captain Rasmussen. “Jones! Shut them down!” He was pointing at one of his officers and then at Anny.

 

“Yessir!” said the officer. He started pushing buttons.

 

Anny was halted there, but the com circuit between Miles and Alby Vorsworth and her was still open. Miles could hear through his wristcom: “Alby, there’s a message in my armor asking me if I want to allow an override. What does that mean?”

 

“Just say no, Anny,” came Alby’s reply.

 

“No,” she said.

 

“Good. Go to it, girl!”

 

Miles was suddenly aware that Rasmussen had a stunner in his hand and it was pointed right at him. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, you little git!” he snarled.

 

Anny moved.

 

She stepped between Miles and Rasmussen, the stunner beam splashing harmlessly off her armor. She grabbed the Captain by his arm and hoisted him off the deck. “Ow! I told you to shut her down!” The stunner tumbled out of the man’s grasp.

 

“I did!” cried the one named Jones. Two more steps and she caught the officer by the back of his tunic and lifted him up, too, their legs flailing uselessly. She turned to face Miles, just as Roic dashed onto the bridge, his own stunner drawn.

“Milord?” His armsman looked totally confused.

 

The other bridge officers were all staring wide-eyed. Miles came forward. “I strongly suggest none of you move,” he said. “Anny?”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Have your men secure this ship. Try not to hurt anyone.”

 

“Yes sir! C Company! Listen up! Drop whatever you are doing and execute Plan B-3. Repeat: Baker Three. Stunners only. _Move it, people!_ ”

 

It was done quickly and efficiently—as he’d expected. Damn, she was a good officer. Of course, the fact that the Dendarii had been forced to offload almost all their own marines to make room for the Barrayaran assault troopers made their resistance entirely hopeless—especially with Alby Vorsworth overriding their attempts to seal hatches and bulkheads. Soon the entire crew had been rounded up and confined to one of the mess halls.

 

All the while, Captain Rasmussen and his officer were dangling in Anny’s tireless grasp.

 

“God damn it, let me down! You’re breaking my arm!” shouted Rasmussen.

 

By this time Colonel Vorfannon had arrived, demanding to know what was going on. “Exactly what I want to know, although I’ve got a pretty good idea,” said Miles. “I trust you have your fast-penta handy, Colonel?”

 

“You wouldn’t dare!” screeched Rasmussen. “I’m still captain of this ship!”

 

“Not for much longer, I don’t think. Captain Payne, please clear the bridge. Have all the other officers confined to… Hmm, where to put them?” He didn’t want them anywhere they were too familiar with. Anywhere there might be hidden tools or weapons or controls.

 

“How about the hanger bay, sir?” suggested Anny. “We could just confine them to one corner and set guards.”

 

“Good idea. Do that. Then bring Captain Rasmussen to my quarters. Colonel, you will assist me with the interrogation.”

 

“Yes, My Lord.” Vorfannon looked confused, but glad to have clear orders.

 

A short while later they were all in his quarters, Rasmussen, Vorfannon, Alby, Roic, and Anny, still in her armor, standing behind Rasmussen who was cradling his arm and spitting mad. “You have no right to do this, Vorkosigan! We have a contract!”

 

“You have a contract with the Dendarii, and the Dendarii have a contract with the Empire. But you have another contract, don’t you Captain? With the Cetagandans.”

 

“That’s bullshit! I don’t…”

 

“Flight Officer Galbone wasn’t here just to keep an eye on me. He was here keeping an eye on _you, too_! Wasn’t he?” Rasmussen’s mouth dropped open and he didn’t answer.

 

“Ah!” said Alby, clearly enlightened.

 

“Yes,” nodded Miles. “The Cetagandans knew what we didn’t. They _knew_ we’d find a thousand children here—wherever here turned out to be. And they probably suspected that we’d be a little squeamish about murdering them, even if we didn’t have to do the deed ourselves. They were afraid that I’d do exactly as I did: give them a chance to run for it. So they took out an insurance policy. Captain Rasmussen had orders to do the job for them if necessary. Right Captain?”

 

“I… it’s a legitimate contract! And it doesn’t affect you Barrayarans at all! I had every right to…!”

 

“I doubt that many people would consider it a _legal_ contract, Captain,” said Miles icily. “Slaughtering helpless civilians for money is frowned upon almost everywhere. But I don’t give a damn one way or the other. I’m not going to let you carry it out.”

 

“Fine! Fine! We’ll just leave. Give me my ship back and I’ll take you all home!”

 

“Not just yet. Colonel?”

 

“I’ve told you everything!” protested Rasmussen.

 

“Not quite everything,” said Miles. “I need to know who else knew about this.”

 

“No one! Damn it!”

 

“Let’s be sure of that, shall we?”

 

Despite his protests, Rasmussen was given the fast-penta and to Miles’ enormous relief, the man had actually been telling the truth: no one else had known. The Cetagandan agent had approached Rasmussen months before they had proposed this mission to Gregor and offered him a substantial sum to be taken on as part of his crew. Later, when _Raptor_ had been selected for Miles’ use, Galbone had made the further proposal to destroy the _ba’s_ base if and when it was found. The sum this time was more than substantial. _But Elli hadn’t known about any of this! Thank God!_

 

“The implication is that the Cetagandans must have put an agent on _every_ Dendarii ship they thought might be used for this operation,” said Vorfannon. “That way they would have a man on the scene no matter which one Admiral Quinn chose to use.”

 

“Yes,” agreed Miles. “Admiral Quinn is going to have some housecleaning to do.”

 

“I seriously doubt we’ll be using the Dendarii again, after this.”

 

“Let’s not burn any bridges,” said Miles, but he was afraid General Allegre might agree with Vorfannon. Even if Elli hadn’t known, the mere fact that even one of her captains had been suborned like this… _And he’s not the only one. Shit._

 

“So are we done?” asked Alby.

 

“Yes. Completely. Let’s go home.”

 

Miles had a little chat with the ship’s first officer, and while he wasn’t at all happy about locking up his captain, he had to agree that Rasmussen’s actions had been unethical and violated several Dendarii regulations. He was willing to assume command and take them back to a rendezvous with Admiral Quinn and let _her_ sort it all out. The fact that Miles had the crew of _Pathfinder_ ready to take over if necessary made it an easy decision.

 

They jumped back to Mardonius and then on through Xerxes to Graf Station. A Dendarii fast courier had been waiting at Mardonius and he sent it off with Colonel Vorfannon to deliver some messages and summon Elli Quinn. _And_ with some very strict orders—in the Emperor’s Voice—not say a word to anyone about anything, thank you very much. The Colonel had seemed so exasperated by that, that Miles was tempted to start a research project to see if an ImpSec officer could actually be made to explode by prolonging such an order.

 

He had the _Raptor_ make a _very_ leisurely passage back to Graf Station. During that time he had Alby erase every scrap of information about what they had found from the _Raptor’s_ computers—while carefully keeping copies for themselves. Sadly, they couldn’t erase the memories of the crew.

 

Somewhere along the way, the water tulips all died.

 

Miles spent much of the time in his cabin working on his report. Reports. The phony one to give to Dag Benin, and the other one that would go to Gregor. He was quite sure that Dag would know it was phony even before he gave it to him, but the forms had to be followed. It wasn’t like they had any contract or formal agreement with the Cetagandans. They’d asked him to try and find the base and he had agreed to try. He’d failed. End of story. Oh, and stay away from Walcheren.

 

But there was still a bit of a gap in the report for Gregor and that would be filled after he met with Quinn. He managed to arrange the meeting to be held at Graf Station. He felt that Bel had earned the right to know what had happened. The herm certainly knew how to keep secrets. A Barrayaran battlecruiser was waiting for them there, too. Time to part company with the Dendarii.

 

He decided to meet with Elli privately first before bringing in Bel. He was nervously waiting for her in a secure conference room that Bel had arranged for him. He got to his feet when she came through the door. He smiled at her, she smiled at him.

 

“Hello, Miles. Good to see you again.”

 

“Hi Elli. You’re looking great.” And she was, too. Damn, she was a good-looking woman. They stood there staring at each other for a few moments before Quinn finally spoke:

 

“Miles, why have you put one of my captains under arrest?”

 

So he told her. He laid out the whole thing, including Rasmussen’s fast-penta interrogation. Elli was looking grimmer and grimmer.

 

“Damn…” she hissed when he was finished. “Miles, I’m… I’m sorry.”

 

“Not your fault,” he offered generously.

 

“Yes it is! It’s my command!”

 

“Well, true. But you are commanding mercenaries. And as proud as we might be of our commands, at the end of the day they are still mercenaries. They are out for themselves first, last and always. And there’s nothing new about a captain picking up a little extra on the side. Remember Old Gaston? He had that whole smuggling operation hidden on his ship for years.”

 

“That’s not the same thing!”

 

“Maybe not. But the question is now: what do you do about it?”

 

“Well first I’m going to have tissue samples taken from every man-jack in the Dendarii!”

 

“Not a bad idea, although I suspect the agents they planted for this operation are already all gone. Mission accomplished for them. But there are probably others who have been there longer, so you should go ahead. But what about Rasmussen and your people on _Raptor_? Can we keep them incommunicado somehow? Most of the crew don’t know the whole story, but they know where we went and how long we stayed. Elli, I need to buy some time. And… I think you owe me that much.”

 

“Yes, yes, certainly. Let me think…” She got out her computer pad and stared at it for a while. “I got an offer for a job way the hell out there about a month ago. Just a little anti-piracy deal. Only needs one ship. But I was going to pass on it because it’s just so damn far away, four months at least. But now…”

 

“That would be about perfect, Elli. By the time they got back, the Cetas would know everything anyway. But what about Rasmussen? I wouldn’t trust leaving him on _Raptor_ where the men are used to following his orders. A week out from here and he’d be back in command—and spilling the beans.”

 

“Well, I could just have him shot. He deserves it for a stunt like this!”

 

“You’d lose three-quarters of your ships when the word got out. And a formal court-martial would be even worse—from my point of view.”

 

“Yeah. I suppose I could just give him to you. Let ImpSec hold him until it doesn’t matter anymore.”

 

“Still a bit awkward for both of us. There’d be too many people asking questions. Where are you heading next?”

 

“Convoy escort. A pretty standard run out past Altoona and back.”

 

“How long?”

 

“Probably about five months. But we end up back in the core. If I just kept him locked up on my ship and turned him loose when we got back… would that be enough?”

 

“Maybe. He’d be able to get to the Cetas right away though… Any frontier worlds on the itinerary?”

 

“One or two.”

 

“How about you just dump him somewhere? The outback of some place in the back of beyond with only the clothes on his back? Might take a while for him to reach civilization.”

 

“Yeah… yeah, that might work. I can trust the people on _Ariel_. All right, deal.”

 

“The first officer on _Raptor_ seems well-liked. He ought to be able to swing his end of it.”

 

“Okay, I’ll take care of things.”

 

“Thanks, Elli, thanks a lot.”

 

“Don’t mention it.” She hesitated. “This is the last time we’ll work together, isn’t it?” She was chewing on her lip, her voice husky.

 

He looked down at his boots. “Might be. General Allegre isn’t going to be happy about all this. I’ll do what I can but…”

 

“I guess all good things come to an end—eventually.”

 

“Yeah. But enough of the gloom! Bel’s waiting to see you again. Let’s go.”

 

She stood up and shook her head. “No, I… I couldn’t handle that right now.”

 

“Elli…”

 

She walked over to him and planted a kiss on his mouth. “Good bye, Miles.” She spun around and left the room, leaving him gawking.

 

 * * *

 

 

 

“Almost home,” said Anny.

 

“About time,” said Alby. “Never thought I’d be glad to see Fort Vorolson again, but I’m tired of all this galactic skullduggery!”

 

The trip back was taking a lot longer than the trip out. Count Vorkosigan was dragging things out as long as he could to give the _ba_ and its children a chance to flee. As soon as they returned, the Cetagandans were going to start asking questions—and drawing conclusions. Maybe they should drive around the block a few more times…

 

But the leisurely pace had even allowed them to stop at Sergyar and see Countess Cordelia for a few days. Anny had been delighted to see her old patron again and they’d spent hours catching up on things. The Countess still held the highest security clearances and one evening the Count had sat them all down and told her about what had happened on their mission. “I’m hoping I didn’t make a mistake on this,” he concluded. “Someday they might turn out to be enemies. And it’s so strange, ten years down the road, when they are grown, and in a different situation I’d be willing to blow them away if I had to. But kids…” he shook his head.

 

“If we weren’t programed not to kill children,” said the Countess. “We’d have become extinct a long time ago.” She smiled and touched her son’s cheek. “I’m proud of you, Miles. Your father would be proud, too.” Anny had never imagined seeing the Count cry.

 

But now they were back in Barrayaran space, moving into orbit. Her dog-robber was packing up their things and soon they would be heading down to the shuttle bay. It felt good being on a Barrayaran ship. It would feel even better to go dirtside. She’d sent a message and Jer knew she was coming. She couldn’t wait to see him.

 

They were just picking up their bags when Count Vorkosigan appeared. He was smiling. “Shoving off?” he asked.

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“Well, it’s been fun, hasn’t it? No, don’t answer that. I guess I don’t need to tell you you can’t talk about all this to anyone?”

 

“No sir,” said Anny.

 

“Our lips are sealed,” said Alby. “No one would believe it anyway.”

 

“Probably not!” laughed Vorkosigan. “But let’s not tempt fate, shall we? I just wanted to say good bye. And to thank you. You both did great jobs.”

 

“It might have turned out better if we hadn’t done such good jobs, sir,” said Alby. “Maybe we shouldn’t have found them.”

 

“Maybe not, but you did the jobs I asked you to do. You couldn’t have known. We couldn’t have known. I’m just sorry I can’t reward you properly. This is another one of those things that’s going to vanish into the ImpSec files. Sorry about that.”

 

“That’s all right, sir,” said Anny.

 

“Of course I’m only talking about the real mission. The _fake_ mission, that escort cover story, will go into your permanent records and I’ve given you all the praise I could. It might impress someone down the road.”

 

“Thank you, sir. Sir?”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“What do you think will happen to them? Will they get away, do you think?”

 

“We’ll probably never know, Anny. Or at least we should pray we never know. If they succeed, we’ll never hear a thing.”

 

“And what will become of them? Will they create a race of supermen?” asked Alby.

 

“The Cetagandans have been working on that for a long time without a great deal of success.” He smiled at each of them. “Frankly, I’m not going to worry about it.”

 

 

**Epilog**

 

 _“J_ _er!”_ Anny dropped her gear and wrapped her arms around the man she loved.

 

“Anny! Oh God, I missed you!” Jer squeezed the breath out of her. Then they kissed. For quite a while, unmindful of the smirking troopers streaming past them. Finally, they broke apart. Alby was standing there, shaking his head and smiling.

 

“Get a room, you two. Oh, wait, that’s right, you do have a room. And so do I. Let’s go to them, eh?”

 

 

Anny sighed. “Got to report in and get my men settled.”

 

“Oh yeah, right. That whole ‘duty’ thing. Almost forgot about that. I suppose I need to report in, too. I guess I’ll see you later, okay?”

 

“Right, back at the house.” She kissed Jer again, briefly. “See you later?”

 

“I could tag along. No duty this afternoon.”

 

“Uh… that’s not going to work.” Jer looked puzzled and a little hurt. “I’ve got to talk to my men—privately. It’s important, Jer. I’ll explain later, okay?”

 

“Well, all right. I’ll see you later.” He started to turn away.

 

“I’ll make it up to you tonight! I promise!”

 

“Well that’s better! Okay then!” He was smiling when he left.

 

First Sergeant Nikolaidis had the company assembled on the edge of the landing field. She walked over to them and ordered them to gather around her in a tight circle. “Okay everyone, we’re going to get checked in and then you guys are on leave for three weeks. But I wanted to warn you again to keep your mouths shut about what happened out there!”

 

“We know sir,” said one of the troopers. “You can trust us.”

 

“I know, I know. But watch yourselves. And watch each other. This is important. If you slip up, if your start blabbing, those little kids are going to _die_! You get me? No horseshit!” The faces around her all looked very serious.

 

“We get you, sir,” said Nikolaidis. “They get you.”

 

“Good. Six months, people. Keep it under your hats for six months and then it won’t matter.”

 

“We read you, Captain.”

 

“Good. Okay, let’s get back to the barracks and settled and then you guys are on leave!” That got a cheer. They formed up and marched back to the barracks they’d left almost six months earlier. Winter had come and gone while they were away and it was a beautiful day. Anny turned the men over to their sergeants and then went to the regimental HQ. Colonel Lurray was happy to see her.

 

“Welcome back, Captain.”

 

“Good to be back, sir.”

 

“I read your report. Not much to it, was there?”

 

“No sir, a piece of cake.”

 

“Why all the secrecy for a simple escort mission?”

 

“Dunno, sir, they didn’t tell us much of anything.”

 

“Typical. Well, glad you’re back. Catch up on your paperwork and then take a few days off.”

 

“Thank you, sir.” She saluted and left. She let out the breath she’d been holding. She supposed she hadn’t _really_ lied to her colonel. She was just glad he hadn’t asked any more questions.

 

A few hours later she was snuggled with Jer in the big old bed in the big old house they shared with Alby in Malverton. “I missed you,” she said.

 

“Missed you, too,” said Jer nuzzling her neck. “So how was it?”

 

“Fantastic,” she sighed.

 

“I meant your mission, silly!”

 

“Oh that. Routine, totally routine.”

 

“Really? Why all the secrecy when you left?”

 

“Beats me. But you know: the military.”

 

“Huh. So nothing out of the ordinary?”

 

“Nope. Didn’t see a single bad guy and never fired a shot.”

 

 * * *

 

“Good luck, dear,” said Ekaterin. “I hope Gregor doesn’t give you too hard a time. Every mission can’t be a success, you know.”

 

“I know,” said Miles, turning away from the window of the ground car taking them to the Residency. “I still hate reporting a failure. But from what I’m hearing, you’ve been doing such a good job filling in for me while I was gone, maybe next time he’ll send you.”

 

His wife laughed. “I haven’t done anything much! But I must say, the Council of Counts is far more interesting when you can actually say things instead of just watching.”

 

“You’ve said a thing or two in there before, as I recall.”

 

“That doesn’t count.”

 

“Oh really? Tell that to Richars!”

 

“If he ever gets out of jail, perhaps I will.”

 

“But the other counts didn’t give you a hard time?”

 

“Not really. They were a bit surprised at first—and even more surprised, I think, when I actually worked up the nerve to express an opinion. But after the second session, they acted like I’d always been there. That is to say, they ignored me. Of course, there weren’t any really heated debates while you were away. If I ever had to really argue a point, it might have been different.”

 

“Well, perhaps the next time there is a fight, I might just take the day off and let you fight it!”

 

“Don’t joke. I might take you up on it.”

 

“Who’s joking?”

 

The car pulled in through the gates and Roic let them out. After the passage through security, Ekaterin pecked him on the cheek. “I’ll be with Laisa. Come find me when you’re done.”

 

“Right.” He watched her walk off. He wished he could tell her the whole story of what had happened. He would someday, but not yet. The Emperor’s majordomo led him to Gregor’s personal office, let him in, and then shut the door behind him. Gregor was there, but so was his son, the Crown Prince. Miles had noticed that Gregor was having the boy sit in on more and more meetings. He thought back to all the times he had watched meetings his father held while regent. _Learning statecraft. Never too early to start._

“Morning Sire, Good morning, your highness.”

 

“Good morning Miles.”

 

“Good morning Uncle Miles.”

 

He pulled his gold auditor’s chain out of a pocket and laid it on the desk next to the comconsole. “Just thought I’d be returning this.” He spotted the data disk containing his report. “You’ve read it?”

 

“Yes.” Gregor let out a sigh. “This is going to cause me a lot of trouble, Miles.”

 

“I know, Sire.”

 

“The Cetagandans are _not_ going to be happy.”

 

“I know, Sire.”

 

“But…” The Emperor of three worlds reached out and pulled his son to him and set him on his lap and wrapped his arms around him.

 

“You did the right thing, Miles.”

 

He smiled.

 

“I know, Sire.”

 

 

**The End**


End file.
